King Sorrow: A Novel

by Joe Hill

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Unearthing the depths of Hill's imagination, this fantastical tale delivers with a villainous dragon steering the ship. It's a satisfying horror that plays out the pitfalls of the human condition — with a side of romance.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Joe Hill, a chilling tale of modern-world dangers, dark academia, and the unexpected consequences of revenge as six friends dabble in the occult and are tragically, horrifyingly successful… calling forth an evil entity that demands regular human sacrifice.

“A brilliantly Faustian fable with a heart as huge as a dragon’s, and a stinging twist in its tail. I devoured it.” —Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in Suite 11

Arthur Oakes is a reader, a dreamer, and a student at Rackham College, Maine, renowned for its frosty winters, exceptional library, and beautiful buildings. But his idyll—and burgeoning romance with Gwen Underfoot—is shattered when a local drug dealer and her partner corner him into one of the worst crimes he can imagine: stealing rare books from the college library.

Trapped and desperate, Arthur turns to his closest friends for comfort and help. Together they dream up a wild, fantastical scheme to free Arthur from the cruel trap in which he finds himself. Wealthy, irrepressible Colin Wren suggests using the unnerving Crane journal (bound in the skin of its author) to summon a dragon to do their bidding. The others—brave, beautiful Alison Shiner; the battling twins Donna and Donovan McBride; and brainy, bold Gwen—don’t hesitate to join Colin in an effort to smash reality and bring a creature of the impossible into our world.

But there’s nothing simple about dealing with dragons, and their pact to save Arthur becomes a terrifying bargain in which the six must choose a new sacrifice for King Sorrow every year—or become his next meal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062200600
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/21/2025
Pages:	896
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 2.30(d)

About the Author

Joe Hill is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of novels (King Sorrow, The Fireman, NOS4A2, Horns, Heart-Shaped Box), fiction collections (Strange Weather, Full Throttle, 20th Century Ghosts), and a comic-book series (Locke & Key). Much of his work has been adapted for film and TV.

Editorial Reviews

A brilliantly Faustian fable with a heart as huge as a dragon’s, and a stinging twist in its tail. I devoured it.” — Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in Suite 11

“King Sorrow is an epic that will linger with you long after the last page is turned, a timeless tale that’s also a haunting time capsule. Joe Hill somehow delivers it all, from the terrifying to the hilarious to the heartbreaking. A relentless and thoughtful tour de force, King Sorrow proves Joe Hill is one of the great storytellers of our generation.” — Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Wish Me Dead

“Joe Hill walks the tightrope between horror and fantasy with grace and menace. This is a tale infused with terror and hope.” — Robin Hobb, New York Times bestselling author of Dragon Keeper, Dragon Haven, City of Dragons, and Blood of Dragons

“A monster of a book, as gripping and wickedly insidious as the title character. Not a page is wasted along its scaly length, from human villainy to diabolical plots, government folly to the desperate search for redemption. A vast, brimstoned, relentless zinger.” — Nick Harkaway, author of Karla’s Choice and Titanium Noir

From the Publisher

★ 2025-07-19
Hill, son of the master, turns in a near-perfect homage to Stephen King.

Arthur Oakes has problems. One is that his mom, a social justice warrior, has landed in the slammer for unintentional manslaughter. And he’s one of just three Black kids at an expensive college (in Maine, of course), an easy target. A local townie drug dealer extorts him into stealing rare books from the school’s library, including one bound in human skin. The unwilling donor of said skin turns up, and so do various sinister people, one reminiscent of Tolkien’s Gollum, another a hick who lives—well, sort of—to kill. Then there’s Colin Wren, whose grandfather collects things occult. As will happen, an excursion into that arcana conjures up the title character, a very evil dragon, who strikes an agreement with fine print requiring Arthur and his circle to provide him with a sacrifice every Easter. “It’s a bad idea to make a deal with them,” says Arthur, belatedly. “Language is one of their weapons…as much as the fire they breathe or the tail that can knock down a house.” King Sorrow roasts his first victims, and the years roll by, with Arthur becoming a medieval scholar (fittingly enough, with a critical scene set at King Arthur’s fortress at Tintagel), Colin a tech billionaire with Muskian undertones (“King Sorrow was a dragon, but Colin was some sort of dark sorcerer”), and others of their circle suffering from either messing with dragons or living in an America of despair. There’s never a dull moment, and though Hill’s yarn is very long, it’s full of twists and turns and, beg pardon, Easter eggs pointing to Kingly takes on politics, literature, and internet trolls (a meta MAGA remark comes from an online review of Arthur’s book on dragons: “i was up for a good book about finding magical sords and stabbing dragons and rescuing hot babes in chainmail panties but instead i got a lot of WOKE nonsense.…and UGH it just goes on and on, couldve been hundreds of pages shorter”).

At turns spooky and funny, with bits of inside baseball and a swimming pool’s worth of blood.

Kirkus Reviews