King Sorrow

SOME PROMISES SHOULD NEVER BE MADE... ***A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK*** 'With King Sorrow, 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 'Epic, exhilarating and haunting in equal measures' 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 '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
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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.