About the Book
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.
Pages: 896
Published on October 21, 2025
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I’ve been a fan of Joe Hill’s books since I read all those years ago NOS4A2. Once I saw King Sorrow, I knew I had to read it. A behemoth of a book, this one is a true doorstopper, clocking in at nearly nine hundred pages, it’s almost an intimidating length until you start reading and the pages stop mattering. The line between the reader’s world and the story becomes murky until it falls away entirely. In the space between one breath and the next, you stop being a passive observer and start living the story along with the characters.
And what a story it is.
King Sorrow starts with a group of college kids in the ‘80s, the best of friends, living their lives. One of the friends finds himself getting blackmailed, and to keep his loved ones safe, steals rare books from the college library to keep those pulling his strings flush with cash. In the process of stealing these books, he finds one that is, perhaps, a bit more than it seems. What follows is a story that spans years, crosses lifetimes, and is steeped in symbolism and literary Easter eggs.
If you’re looking through a bookstore or library for King Sorrow, you’ll probably find it on shelves alongside other horror books, but this one felt like it crossed genre lines a bit more than that. With an epic fantasy length, and plenty of dark fantasy notes, steeped in a modern world, this feels more like a genre-mashup than anything else. Like King Sorrow refused to be contained or defined and so it’s a little bit of everything and completely its own creature. There is no other book like this one.
Still, this allows King Sorrow to appeal to a wide array of readers. It will thrill horror seekers, and yet those who enjoy magical realism and dark fantasy will find plenty within these pages to appeal to them as well. There are literary Easter eggs sprinkled throughout the narrative, a true love letter to literature, which adds a human touch that floods these pages with the subtle note of the author’s passion, his love for his craft and the stories that came before.
Despite the fact that this is a long, heavy book, it never felt either long or heavy. There is a meticulous attention to detail throughout, not only on a plot level but also regarding pacing. There is never a wasted word or a wasted page. Every moment, from subtle to overt, is in place to drive things forward, and it all feels both effortless and carefully considered. It’s the kind of book that feels like it took a lot of years to write, and probably a lot of migraines on the author’s part. So many intricate pieces fitting together so effortlessly only means that Hill probably tore a few chunks of hair out in the process of making it seem that way.
The payoff for all that effort is worth it, though, because here is a story that you don’t have to work for. You can sit back and enjoy, allow the story to happen to you. Something is always transpiring, and often it’s unexpected. And yet, there are layers at work, and symbolism, subtle literary devices that only became clear to me after reading a scene two or three times. A re-read will likely be necessary to pick up all these bits and pieces that the author has carefully woven into his story. This is a complicated tapestry and Joe Hill is a master craftsman, his fingers steady upon the loom.
The best horror is the kind that feels as though it could happen to me. Stories that are both fantastical and impossible and yet, I could picture myself in that scene, with those characters, trying to flex my way through that situation. To create that kind of realism with a story as surreal King Sorrow requires true literary skill. The division between reader and character disappears stunningly fast, until I’m in the story with the characters, brokering with King Sorrow along with them, trying to find my way through impossible situations, breathlessly.
King Sorrow himself is a fantastically created phantasm. He’s terrifying and visceral and crafted in a way that felt true to what dragons are and to all the things he symbolized. He also had some of the best lines I’ve run across in a while, making him one of those truly quotable characters steeped in that gallows humor I love so much. What makes him so successful as a character, however, was how achingly well he was presented on the page. There are no soft edges. The mystery of him is part of the character and how he has been developed and created. He’s brutal and aggressive and like a cat toying with a mouse, he enjoys playing with his food. And Joe Hill turns both his characters and the reader into his meal. We are the mice, and Hill makes that game between predator and prey felt on every page, in every line. He plays the tension like a fiddle in minor key, and effortlessly, we dance to their tunes.
And yet, the story is bolstered and balanced by the friendships, the relationships, the love and caring of this group of friends. No matter how life pulls at them and drives them apart and into different lives, they remain together until that bitter, surprising, stunning ending. I felt, at times, like I was witnessing the unfolding of a twisted King Arthur and the Round Table mixed with a version of Stranger Things that, quite frankly, appealed to me more than the television show ever will (I’m not a big TV watcher, though).
Are there things for readers to be aware of? Yes. This is a long book, and no matter how much you may enjoy it, nine hundred pages is an investment of time. So that’s worth being aware of. Also, it’s bloody and a bit macabre. Joe Hill holds no punches and he softens none of the edges. Tension is his primary instrument here, and it makes it sing a long, dark song. What I’m saying is, this is a long, dark, bloody book and that might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
But if you don’t mind your books a little dark, a little bloody, and a lot brutal then…
Behold, King Sorrow.