M. Night Shyamalan and Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, A Walk to Remember) are joining forces for an interesting collaboration that will result in both a movie and a novel titled Remain, with both movie and novel based on an original story the duo co-created.
Shyamalan and Sparks are writing a screenplay and a novel, respectively. Both projects are based on the same concept and set of characters but tailored to their respective mediums.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor have been set to star in the movie, while the cover art has been revealed this afternoon for the novel, which is simply titled Remain: A Novel.
Shyamalan tweets this afternoon, “The book, written by Nicholas [Sparks], will be available on October 7, 2025. More news on the film I’m writing and directing coming soon.”
Along with the pre-order listing for Remain: A Novel over on Amazon, we’ve also got a plot synopsis for the project that up to this point had been shrouded in secrecy.
Here’s the official synopsis for the tale described as “a one-of-a-kind novel that grapples with the supernatural mysteries of life, death, and human connection—an unprecedented collaboration between the globally bestselling author of love stories like The Notebook and the renowned writer and director of blockbuster thrillers like The Sixth Sense.”
“When New York architect Tate Donovan arrives in Cape Cod to design his best friend’s summer home, he is hoping to make a fresh start. Recently discharged from an upscale psychiatric facility where he was treated for acute depression, he is still wrestling with the pain of losing his beloved sister. Sylvia’s deathbed revelation—that she can see spirits who are still tethered to the living world, a gift that runs in their family—sits uneasily with Tate, who struggles to believe in more than what reason can explain. But when he takes up residence at a historic bed-and-breakfast on the Cape, he encounters a beautiful young woman named Wren who will challenge every assumption he has about his logical and controlled world.
“Tate and Wren find themselves forging an immediate connection, one that neither has ever experienced before. But Tate gradually discovers that below the surface of Wren’s idyllic small-town life, hatred, jealousy, and greed are festering, threatening their fragile relationship just as it begins to blossom. Tate realizes that in order to free Wren from an increasingly desperate fate, he will need to unearth the truth about her past before time runs out . . . a quest that will make him doubt whether we can ever believe the stories we tell about ourselves, and the laws that govern our existence. Love—while transformative—can sometimes be frightening.
“A story about the power of transcendent emotion, Remain asks us all: Can love set us free not only from our greatest sorrows, but even from the boundaries of life and death?”
Check out the cover art below and pre-order Remain: A Novel today.
