Welcome back to Books With Cause. Let’s dive straight into my latest review.
If I were Joe Hill, I’d write under a pen name too. Not to distance myself from my famous father (it doesn’t bother Owen King, after all) but because people can make fun of a name like Joe King. Of course, I understand a lot of the criticism that may have come Hill’s way over the years. But he can’t help who his father is, and I think he’s made every effort he can to ensure that his career isn’t a result of nepotism. And, of course, as a Stephen King fan, I was always going to be at least intrigued to read Joe’s books.
To date, Hill has published five novels and three collections of shorts, including Twentieth Century Ghosts, which featured the story Black Phone. Black Phone, of course, has inspired two horror movies within the last decade. Of his novels, I have previously read and enjoyed Heart-Shaped Box and NOS4A2. The powers that be at Horror Afficionados decided it was time to add Hill’s latest offering to that list. King Sorrow.
At the start of the book, we meet Arthur. An academic in his last year of college and visiting his mother in prison. A pair of drug dealers threaten Arthur’s mother’s life unless he does exactly what he tells them. They demand he steal rare books from the college library – where he works – which they will then sell. But they don’t stop at one or two. They want Arthur to keep stealing.
With no end in sight, Arthur confides in his closest friends. Gwen, whom he has a crush on; Colin, his wealthy best friend; Alison; and twins, Donna and Donovan. The six of them end up summoning a fabled dragon from one of the books Arthur steals. The dragon is called King Sorrow, and King Sorrow can solve all their problems. King Sorrow has no issues with killing. All he needs is the name.
But what the six friends don’t realise is that this isn’t a one-time deal. King Sorrow returns every year, and he wants the six of them to give him a new name each year, or else one of them will die in place.
When I picked up this book from the library, it immediately intimidated me. It is thick. 881 pages and hardback. This book is epic in every sense of the word. It is broken up into different parts, each part labelled as a book in its own right, like it’s the bible. Part one takes place in 1989. Part two in 1995. Part three in 2000. Part four in 2006. And the final part takes place in 2016-22. Remarkably, despite stretching to almost 900 pages, I never felt Joe Hill was padding the story. Every era adds another layer to the characters and their impossible bargain.
We spend time with these characters over four different decades. Of course, as they get older, their situations and relationships change. But King Sorrow is the constant. The meddling dragon keeps them on their toes, and they each deal with the impact of choosing someone to die each year in a different way.
This book is a moral case study. Do we ever have the right to decide who lives and dies? It’s like the old philosophical question of if a time traveller saw Adolf Hitler pre-World War II, would they have the right to assassinate him?
What I also love about this book is that it connects to real-world events as well as referencing characters from Stephen King’s The Dead Zone. With dragons and trolls, I think this book is also a love letter to Tolkien. Of course, those sorts of books aren’t my kind of thing, but the way Hill weaves his narrative here absolutely makes it my kind of thing.
I could wax lyrical all day, but without any hint of exaggeration, this has to be my favourite thing I’ve read in 2026 so far. It’s the sort of book I think I might enjoy rereading in years to come. But due to the thickness of it, that might be a fair few years away yet.
My Goodreads Rating: ★★★★★ (5 stars)
