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A Novel
by Joe Hill
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.
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.
"Bestseller Hill masterfully sustains tension throughout this immersive doorstopper of a horror novel...This reinforces Hill's reputation as a titan of the genre." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"There's never a dull moment, and though Hill's yarn is very long, it's full of twists and turns...At turns spooky and funny, with bits of inside baseball and a swimming pool's worth of blood." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Hill's remarkably well-paced, character-centered epic, blanketed in unrelenting dread that escalates to pure terror every Easter, is perfectly suited for this moment. Pitting the computer age against folktales, King Sorrow is a story that seriously contemplates the costs of power. However, the real horror may be that there are plenty of dragons to go around." —Booklist (starred review)
"Epic! King Sorrow is Hill's best and most ambitious work to date. Those Game of Thrones dragons are mere geckos next to Hill's monster." —Linwood Barclay, New York Times bestselling author of Whistle
"When they talk about 'natural born storytellers,' it's Joe Hill they're talking about." —John Scalzi, New York Times bestselling author of When the Moon Hits Your Eye
This information about King Sorrow was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: J. Lassen
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.
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