Author E L James told the New York Times that her latest book, Freed, is meant for “hardcore” fans of the Fifty Shades series. The book was published Tuesday by Sourcebooks imprint Bloom.
Freed is a retelling of Fifty Shades Freed, the final book in the trilogy, from the perspective of Christian Grey, the S and M–loving Seattle billionaire who embarks on a kinky relationship with college student Anastasia Steele.
“It’s not written for anyone who doesn’t want to read it, you know?” James told the paper. “It’s very simple. And also, it goes back to seeing those five books. I feel the sense of, it wasn’t complete, and now it is, and that goes back to the question, have you finished with this? I have for now. This, hopefully, will give me some freedom to go and explore something else.”
She also said that her retelling of the original series was spurred by her dissatisfaction with the film adaptations of her books starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan.
“It was not a happy experience,” James said. “I’ve not really said anything about it, and I don’t particularly want to say anything about it. Just to say, I was very pleased to be back in the book world.”
Her fans also seem to be pleased. As of Tuesday afternoon, Freed was the No. 4 bestselling book on Amazon.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
