M. Night Shyamalan has made some fantastic films over the years, so picking up anything he has his name on is typically a no-brainer. Still, when I saw he was teaming up with Nicholas Sparks on Remain, I was skeptical. While The Notebook is a great story, I am just not much of a Sparks fan. But after reading Remain, the collaboration so much sense and now I’d happily read more from these two together.
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.
Heading into the story, I fully expected a classic romance novel but with a shocking Shyamalan twist. While it doesn’t deliver an “I see dead people” moment from The Sixth Sense, it did have some twisty moments. Shyamalan and Sparks’ choice to blend supernatural mystery with romance is a bold one, but it truly pays off. Honestly, it was refreshing to see Sparks stretch into new territory with his storytelling.
Remain deals with loss, grief, mental health, and how love interacts with memory. While some fans romance novels, especially avid Sparks’ readers, might be skeptical of this unexpected pairing, along with the supernatural elements, Sparks’ ability to craft an emotional love story should win those skeptics over. There is a smooth blending of each author’s skillset and story should make fans of both creators happy in the end.
While I saw the twist coming from a mile away, it didn’t take away from the overall story. I was actually happy to figure it out, have it revealed, and be able to move along with the story. My only real critique is how quickly the characters accepted the supernatural elements with little persuasion. Still, at times we need to suspend our beliefs in order to make a story work and while a slower, more gradual acceptance could have been interesting, and while a slower, more gradual acceptance could have been interesting,
Remain is the result of two storytellers at the top of their respective genres. Nicholas Sparks and M. Night Shyamalan wonderfully blend romance and the supernatural to craft a story that had me hooked from the first page. It’ll be exciting to see how the second have of this collaboration unfolds when the feature film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Phoebe Dynevor, and Ashley Walters hits theaters in October 2026.
Remain hits bookstores everywhere on October 7, 2025 from Random House. The audiobook, narrated by Ari Fliakos & Julia Whelan, is available via Libro.fm!
