Books published by publisher Pocket Star Books

The #1 New York Times bestseller about a famous novelist held hostage in a remote location by his “number one fan.” One of “Stephen King’s best…genuinely scary” (USA TODAY).Bestselling novelist Paul Sheldon thinks he’s finally free of Misery Chastain. In a controversial career move, he’s just killed off the popular protagonist of his beloved romance series in favor of expanding his creative horizons. But such a change doesn’t come without consequences. After a near-fatal car accident in rural Colorado leaves his body broken, Paul finds himself at the mercy of the terrifying rescuer who’s nursing him back to health—his self-proclaimed number one fan, Annie Wilkes. Annie is very upset over what Paul did to Misery and demands that he find a way to bring her back by writing a new novel—his best yet, and one that’s all for her. After all, Paul has all the time in the world to do so as a prisoner in her isolated house...and Annie has some very persuasive and violent methods to get exactly what she wants... “King at his best…a winner!” —The New York Times “Unadulteratedly terrifying…frightening.” —Publishers Weekly “Classic King…full of twists and turns and mounting suspense.” —The Boston Globe

The first in a contemporary romance suspense series from New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Barbara Freethy, set in the coastal California town of Angel’s Bay.In Angel’s Bay there is a local legend: spirits from an 1800s shipwreck protect the townspeople, bringing about a belief in miracles and an ability of the community to heal wounds and save souls. So when Jenna Davis’s sister left instructions for keeping her daughter, Lexie, safe from her abusive father, Jenna obeyed her late sister’s wishes and took Lexie to Angel’s Bay. For three months, the two live quietly. But when a young woman jumps over the pier into the ocean, Jenna dives in, saving the woman’s life. Now a hero in the eyes of the locals, Jenna tries to lie low, but reporter Reid Tanner is determined to figure out just who she is and what she’s hiding from—without realizing the possible cost.

“In the world of black-op thrillers, Mitch Rapp continues to be among the best of the best” (Booklist, starred review), and he returns in Vince Flynn’s #1 New York Times bestselling series alone and targeted by a country that is supposed to be one of America’s closest allies. After 9/11, the United States made one of the most secretive and dangerous deals in its history. The evidence against the powerful Saudis who coordinated the attack would be buried. In return, King Faisal would promise to keep the oil flowing and deal with the conspirators in his midst. When the king’s own nephew is discovered funding ISIS, the President—furious but unable to take action against the Saudis—gives Rapp his next mission: he must find out more about which high-level Saudis are involved in the scheme and kill them. The catch? Rapp will get no support from the United States. Forced to make a decision that will change his life forever, Rapp quits the CIA and assembles a group of independent contractors to help him complete the mission. They’ve barely begun unraveling the connections between the Saudi government and ISIS when the brilliant new head of the intelligence directorate discovers their efforts. With Rapp getting too close, he threatens to go public with the details of the post-9/11 agreement between the two countries. Facing an international incident that could end his political career, the President orders America’s intelligence agencies to join the Saudis’ effort to hunt the former CIA man down. Rapp, supported only by a team of mercenaries with dubious allegiances, finds himself at the center of the most elaborate manhunt in history. It’s only a matter of time before he’s caught or killed. Will it be enough to turn the tables on the Saudis and clear his name?

#1 New York Times bestselling author of American Assassin—now a major motion picture America’s most powerful leader becomes its prime target, a “nightmarish” (Booklist) scenario made all-too-real in this Mitch Rapp thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Vince Flynn.The stately calm of a Washington morning is shattered when a group of terrorists descends, killing dozens and taking nearly one hundred hostages as they massacre their way into the White House. The Secret Service evacuates the president to an underground bunker—and while officials argue over how to negotiate with the enemy, Mitch Rapp, the CIA’s top counterterrorism operative, moves stealthily among the hidden corridors and secret passageways of the executive mansion, to save the hostages before the terrorists reach the president. But another adversary—someone within Washington’s elite—is determined to see Rapp’s rescue mission fail.

The newest thriller and instant #1 New York Times bestseller from Queen of Suspense Mary Higgins Clark shows us just how far a family and a town will go to protect their own in the wake of tragedy.After a party when her parents are away, eighteen-year-old Kerry Dowling is found fully dressed at the bottom of the family pool. The immediate suspect is her boyfriend, who had a bitter argument with her at the party. Then there is a twenty-year-old neighbor who was angry because she didn’t invite him to the party. Or is there another suspect who has not yet been seen on the radar? Kerry’s older sister Aline, a twenty-eight-year-old guidance counselor, is determined to assist the prosecutor’s office in learning the truth. She does not realize that now she is putting her own life in danger… From #1 New York Times bestselling author and the “Queen of Suspense” comes a thrilling investigation asking what we truly know about those we trust, and the secrets lying in even the most idyllic of neighborhoods.

CASINO From Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy —the #1 bestseller that became Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award–winning film GoodFellas—comes the brilliantly told true story of love, marriage, adultery, murder, and revenge, Mafia-style . . . the shattering inside account of how the mob finally lost its stranglehold over the neon money-making machine it created: the multibillion-dollar casino gambling industry of Las Vegas. CASINO No one knew more about casinos than Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, the gambling mastermind who, along with his best friend and partner, Anthony Spilotro, virtually ran Las Vegas for the mob. For years, it was the perfect arrangement—Lefty provided the smarts, while Tony kept the bosses happy with their weekly suitcases filled with millions in skimmed cash. It should have lasted forever, but Lefty’s obsession with running the town—and Tony’s obsession with Lefty’s beautiful showgirl wife, Geri—eventually led to the betrayals and investigations that exploded into one of the greatest debacles in mob history.

THE DEFINITIVE WORK OF AMERICAN TRUE CRIME FROM "AMERICA'S BEST TRUE-CRIME WRITER" (Kirkus Reviews) Utterly unique in its astonishing intimacy, as jarringly frightening as when it first appeared, Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me defies our expectation that we would surely know if a monster lived among us, worked alongside of us, appeared as one of us. With a slow chill that intensifies with each heart-pounding page, Rule describes her dawning awareness that Ted Bundy, her sensitive coworker on a crisis hotline, was one of the most prolific serial killers in America. He would confess to killing at least thirty-six young women from coast to coast, and was eventually executed for three of those cases. Drawing from their correspondence that endured until shortly before Bundy's death, and striking a seamless balance between her deeply personal perspective and her role as a crime reporter on the hunt for a savage serial killer -- the brilliant and charismatic Bundy, the man she thought she knew -- Rule changed the course of true-crime literature with this unforgettable chronicle.

Ann Rule presents a collection of fascinating and disturbing true-crime stories—drawn from her real-life personal files—in this seventeenth volume in the #1 New York Times bestselling Crime Files series.In this gripping collection of investigative accounts from her private archives, “America’s best true-crime writer” (Kirkus Reviews) exposes the most frightening aspect of the murderous mind: the waiting game. Trusted family members or strangers, these cold-blooded killers select their unsuspecting prey, wait for the perfect moment to strike, then turn normality into homicidal mayhem in a matter of moments. Ann Rule will have you seeing the people and places around you with heightened caution as you read these shattering cases, including: • New mothers murdered, their infants kidnapped, in an atrocious baby-selling scheme • The man who kept his criminal past hidden from his wife—and his wife from his mistress—until he coldly disposed of one of them • The beautiful daughter of a State Department official ran away from the privileged world she knew and hitched a ride with a man she didn’t . . . with fatal consequences • For months, a vicious, rage-filled serial rapist eluded police and terrorized Seattle’s women—when would he strike next, and how far would his violence escalate? • A criminal known for his Houdini-like escapes is serving time for murder in a botched robbery—now the convict is being served dinner in a civilian’s home, where he has one more trick up his sleeve • A long-lost relative who came home to visit, leaving a bloody trail through Washington and Oregon; no one realized how dangerous he and his ladylove were—until it was far too late. . . . With her ability to translate the most complex cases into storytelling “as dramatic and chilling as a bedroom window shattering at night” (The New York Times), Rule expertly analyzes the thoughts and deeds of the sociopath, in this seventeenth essential Crime Files volume.

Now available for the first time in a mass-market premium paperback edition—master storyteller Stephen King presents the classic #1 New York Times bestseller about a housekeeper with a long-hidden secret from her past...one that tests her own will to survive."Everything I did, I did for love..." When Vera Donovan, one of the wealthiest and most ill-natured residents of Maine's Little Tall Island, dies suddenly in her home, suspicion is immediately cast on her housekeeper and caretaker, Dolores Claiborne. Dolores herself is no stranger to such mistrust, thanks to the local chatter and mysterious circumstances surrounding her abusive husband's death twenty-nine years earlier. But if this is truly to be the day of Dolores Claiborne's reckoning, she has a few things of her own that she'd like to get off her chest...and begins to confess a spirited, intimate, and harrowing tale of the darkest secrest hidden within her hardscrabble existence, revealing above all one woman's unwavering determination to weather the storm of her life with grace and protect the one she loves, no matter what the cost....

Discover the world of the Shadowhunters in the first installment of the internationally bestselling Mortal Instruments series and “prepare to be hooked” (Entertainment Weekly). City of Bones is a Shadowhunters novel.When Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder—much less a murder committed by three people covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. And she’s more than a little startled when the body disappears into thin air. Soon Clary is introduced to the world of the Shadowhunters, a secret cadre of warriors dedicated to driving demons out of our world and back to their own. And Clary is introduced with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is almost killed by a grotesque monster. How could a mere human survive such an attack and kill a demon? The Shadowhunters would like to know…

New York Times bestselling author and literary phenomenon V.C. Andrews (Flowers in the Attic, My Sweet Audrina) presents the second book in the gothic saga of romance, class divisions, and the family secrets that began with House of Secrets.The grand, gothic Wyndemere House is a labyrinth, containing as many secrets as it does corners obscured in shadow. Home to the Davenports, a wealthy and distinguished family, Fern Corey and her mother have lived there as servants for Fern’s entire young life. Despite their difference in station, Fern and Dr. Davenport’s son, Ryder, have always been extremely close. Which was never a problem… until they came of age. An intimate encounter following a high school prom brings the pair near-tragic consequences, and the forces of fate, arrogance, and class prejudice gather to crush their warm relationship. Still, the real threat to their happiness is something no one can control: the past, and the unspoken truths that lurk there. Fern and Ryder’s parents suffer with empathy, they themselves caught in the emotional maze the house creates. When the slow revelations of Wyndemere's secrets finally unfold, everyone party to them will become entangled in a treachery more complete than any could have imagined. For the past is never really past, no matter what age you are.

From the legendary New York Times bestselling author of Flowers in the Attic and My Sweet Audrina (now Lifetime movies) comes the first book in the Casteel Family series—for fans of Emma Donoghue (Room) and Kay Hooper (Amanda).Of all the folks on the mountain, the Casteel children are the lowest. Even the families that buy them think so. Heaven Leigh Casteel may be the prettiest, smartest girl in the backwoods, but her cruel father and weary stepmother work her like a mule. For the sake of her brother Tom and the other little ones, Heaven clings to the hope that someday she can show the world that they are worthy of love and respect. But when the children’s stepmother can’t take it anymore and abandons the family, Heaven’s father hatches a scheme that will alter her young life forever. Being sold to a strange couple is just the beginning; ripping away the thin veneer of civilization and learning the adult secrets of the world around her means Heaven must abandon someone, too—the child she was, to become the woman her mother never had the chance to be.