King Sorrow

SOME PROMISES SHOULD NEVER BE MADE…

***A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK***

‘A tour de force…King Sorrow is huge, sprawling – and absolutely fantastic’ THE GUARDIAN
‘Joe Hill gloriously resurrects the doorstop horror blockbuster for a startling new century’ ALAN MOORE
‘A soaring epic and painfully intimate. You won’t be able to stop burning through the pages’ PAUL TREMBLAY
‘Perfection from start to finish’ DAILY EXPRESS
‘A commanding, captivating read’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘Epic…a multi-layered, rich response to the horrors and hopes of living today’ DAILY MAIL

Bookish dreamer Arthur Oakes is a student at Rackham College, Maine, renowned for its frosty winters and beautiful buildings.

But his idyll – and burgeoning romance with Gwen Underfoot – is shattered when local drug dealers force him into a terrible crime: stealing rare and valuable books from the exceptional college library.

Trapped and desperate, Arthur turns to his closest friends for help: the wealthy, irrepressible Colin Wren; brave, beautiful Allison Shiner; the battling twins Donna and Donovan McBride; and brainy, bold Gwen. Together they dream up an impossible, fantastical scheme that they scarcely imagine will work: to summon the fabled dragon King Sorrow to kill those tormenting Arthur.

But the six stumble backwards into a deadly bargain – they soon learn they must choose a new sacrifice for King Sorrow each year or one of them will become his next victim. Unleashing consequences they can neither predict nor control, this promise will, over the course of four decades, shape and endanger their lives in ways they could never expect.

‘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
‘A wild, genre-defying journey, packed with all sorts of unexpected twists and turns’ DAILY MIRROR
‘A glorious, wild ride’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘Epic! KING SORROW is Hill’s best and most ambitious work to date’ LINWOOD BARCLAY
‘Magnificent – by far and away Hill’s best book to date’ SFX
‘When they talk about “natural born storytellers,” it’s Joe Hill they’re talking about’ JOHN SCALZI
‘A monster of a book…a vast, brimstoned, relentless zinger’ NICK HARKAWAY

Praise for Sunday Times bestseller Joe Hill:

‘Fantastically compelling’ THE OBSERVER
‘Clever, gripping and packs a hell of a punch’ JOANNE HARRIS
‘Character-driven stories that enthral and thrill’ DAILY MAIL
‘Original and gripping’ GEORGE R. R. MARTIN