King Sorrow

King Sorrow by Joe Hill tells the story of bookish dreamer Arthur Oakes, a student at Rackham College, Maine, renowned for its frosty winters and beautiful buildings.

However, Arthur's 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 Alison 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.

The six, however, 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.