Rose Madder

Stephen King

Jan 2016 · Simon and Schuster · Narrated by Blair Brown

About this audiobook

The #1 national bestseller about a woman who escapes an abusive marriage is “one of Stephen King’s most engrossing horror novels. Relentlessly paced and brilliantly orchestrated...fueled by an air of danger immediate and overwhelming” (Publishers Weekly).

"What woke her up was a single drop of blood, no larger than a dime."

After surviving fourteen years of hell in a violently abusive marriage, Rosie Daniels finally summons the courage to flee for her life. But leaving her husband, Norman, for a new city and a new start is a very daunting prospect. It's hard for Rosie not to keep looking over her shoulder, and with good reason—Norman's a police officer with the instincts of a predator, a force of relentless terror and savagery…a man almost mythic in his monstrosity. He's very good at finding people, even if he is losing his mind. Rosie’s only hope for salvation may lie in a far more dangerous place, where she must become her own myth and the woman she never knew she could be....

Ratings and reviews

This isn't the worst audiobook I've listened to, but it's probably the worst Stephen King audiobook I've listened to. I don't mean to sound sexist, but the "Norman" chapters narrated by Stephen King are by far the most entertaining, funny, gruesome, and engaging chapters in the book. I found Blair Brown's voice to be a little too formal and stuffy. She made the protagonist come off like a matronly windbag; not a woman in her early-thirties.

OMG, I originally bought the book as a teenager and didn't get it. Re-read as an adult of much more experience, and oh wow. I can relate and hate to say it is almost as if he snuck in and wrote my story. hands down a great read

The first half grips you. The story that surrounds Rose and dips the reader in the first half was amazing. great details and it truly makes you feel bad for the character. But I got lost in the fantasy world she dove into. It wasn't something I expected or even liked. The end of the line for one of the characters was anticlimactic and didn't do justice or satisfy my want for pain for the character. It was an ok book and far from one of SKs best. Dolores Claibourn is by far superior in every way.

About the author

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Blair Brown appeared on Broadway in Copenhagen (Tony Award) Cabaret, James Joyce's The Dead and Arcadia. Favorite film credits include Dogville, Continental Divide, and Altered States. On television, she starred in The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd and has appeared in countless mini-series and TV movies.