It focuses on an author who suffers severe writer's block and delusions at an isolated lake house four years after the death of his wife.

When the paperback edition of Bag of Bones was published by Pocket Books on June 1, 1999 (ISBN 978-0671024239), it included a new author's note at the end of the book, in which Stephen King describes his initial three-book deal with Scribner (Bag of Bones, On Writing, and a collection of short stories titled One Headlight, which later became Everything's Eventual), and devotes most of the piece describing the origins of the then-forthcoming Hearts in Atlantis.

[5] Ultimately, King left Viking and on November 6, 1997[6] signed an initial three-book deal with Simon & Schuster, with a $2 million advance for Bag of Bones in addition to 50% profit-sharing.

[7][8] The novel, first reported to be a thousand pages but turned out to be nearly half that, was billed as "a haunted love story", and this phrase was printed on the back cover of the hardcover first edition, which had a print-run of 1.4 million copies.

[9] The narrator, Mike Noonan, a bestselling novelist, suffers severe writer's block after his pregnant wife Jo suddenly dies due to a brain aneurysm.

Four years later, Mike, still grieving, is plagued by nightmares set at his summer house in TR-90 (an unincorporated town named for its map coordinates), Maine.

Several families whose origin lay within the town had firstborn children with "K" names who were all murdered—Kyra, as a descendant of Max Devore, is scheduled to be the next to die.

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction reviewer Charles de Lint declared Bag of Bones to be "a powerful, moving novel.

The characterizations are plummy, the dialogue sharp, and even the ghosts play second fiddle to Mike Noonan and his genuinely anguished midlife crisis.

It contained a Questions & Answers with Stephen King, along with "The Cat from Hell," a short story from his then upcoming collection Just After Sunset.

A 2+1⁄2-hour (approximately 4 hours with commercials) TV miniseries produced by Stewart Mackinnon and Mark Sennet, directed by Mick Garris and with teleplay by screenwriter Matt Venne aired on A&E in December 2011.

[12] Irish actor Pierce Brosnan plays Mike Noonan,[13] with Broadway actress Anika Noni Rose taking the role of Sara Tidwell.