Best-selling author Nicholas Sparks has built a career writing emotionally grounded love stories

like The Notebook and A Walk to Remember that explore the resilience of the human heart.

His latest novel, Remain, adds an unexpected twist, co-written with filmmaker M. Knight-Sharmelon,

it blends Sparks's trademark romance with Shomamalan's sense of mystery and the supernatural.

The two teamed up to craft a story about loss, faith, and finding meaning after grief.

I spoke with Nicholas Sparks about the collaboration and the new creative territory it opened up.

Nicholas Sparks, welcome to the News Hour.

Thank you for having me.

Thrilled to be here.

Your name is practically synonymous with deeply human love stories.

This book, Remain, adds a supernatural dimension.

You co-wrote it with filmmaker M. Knight-Sharmelon.

How did that collaboration begin, and what convinced you that it would work?

Yeah, it kind of began in one of those funny

Hollywood ways, right? I had my agent in Hollywood knew someone in blinding edge pictures and they

were talking. They said, hey, we should get Nick and Knight together. And I've heard that

you know, a couple dozen times over the last 25 years. And usually nothing

ever happens. But this one came through. A meeting was set up. And the purpose of that meeting was

each of us was going to come up with an original story that would work as both a novel and a film

and that would work for his audiences and and a film, and that would work

for his audiences and mine, and we were going to pitch each other our stories. And that was in May

of 2023 and didn't really hear anything until August of 2024. And he called me up and he said,

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