King Sorrow

This is the one. King Sorrow is Joe Hill’s most ambitious novel, a dark academia horror epic set at a fictional college in Maine in the late 1980s. Six friends attempt to save one of their own from drug dealers by stealing rare books from the college library. Among the stolen volumes is a grimoire bound in human skin. Before handing it over, they use it to summon a dragon called King Sorrow, and the bargain they strike will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Why Start Here

It is Hill’s biggest and best book, the novel where everything he has learned about pacing, character, and dread comes together. The dark academia setting grounds the horror in something relatable: the intensity of college friendships, the feeling that your small group of brilliant friends can take on anything. Hill uses that closeness as the foundation for a Faustian bargain that forces the six to choose a new sacrifice every year or become the next meal themselves.

At 896 pages it is a commitment, but the structure keeps it moving. The story alternates between the 1980s college years and the present day, as the surviving friends reckon with decades of guilt and loss. Hill writes action sequences with the propulsive energy of his father, but the emotional core is entirely his own. The friendship at the center feels real, which makes the horror of what they do to each other land harder.

What to Expect

A long, immersive read that blends campus life, occult ritual, and creature horror. The tone shifts between dark humor, genuine terror, and heartbreak. If you have read Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, imagine that novel crossed with a monster story where the monster is very, very real. The ending is devastating. Come prepared to lose a few days to this one.