The Gingerbread Girl is a novella by American writer Stephen King, originally published in the July 2007 issue of Esquire.

The Gingerbread Girl was also released as an audiobook, read by Mare Winningham, by Simon & Schuster Audio on May 6, 2008.

During a chance meeting, Hollis tells Emily that Jim Pickering, a man who owns an estate on the island, is back.

As Emily continues her daily run, she notices a shiny red car outside a house along the beach that she deduces belongs to Pickering.

She wakes up to find herself inside Pickering's house and bound to a wooden chair with duct tape.

She wobbbles the chair to break the tape holding it to the floor then walks it to where she smashes the back against the fridge.

[2] A review in the San Francisco Chronicle calls it "a harrowing almost-novella, [which] anchors the book and bridges the inner-psyche thrillers of King's 1990s work with his more recent stories.

A story of abuse, psychosis and loneliness, it is physically exhausting to read — an astounding thing to say for a short work of fiction.

"[3] A Toronto Star reviewer calls it "a flat-out suspense novella that could have been penned by Richard Bachman, King's literary alter ego ...[in which] bloody chaos ensues.