King Sorrow

Published in 2025, King Sorrow is a fantasy/horror novel by American author Joe Hill, winner of the Bram Stoker Award and British Fantasy Award. The novel follows a group of college friends led by Arthur Oakes, who summons a demonic entity named King Sorrow and becomes inadvertently locked in a coercive arrangement that the group spends nearly 30 years trying to escape. Hill explores the human capacity for good, the ethical quandaries of killing, and the complexities around absolving guilt.

This study guide refers to the Kindle edition of the novel, published by William Morrow in 2025.

Content Warning: The study guide and its source material feature depictions of death, graphic violence, addiction, substance use, emotional abuse, physical abuse, antigay bias, cursing, child death, bullying, child abuse, mental illness, sexual content, suicidal ideation and death by suicide, racism and anti-Semitism, gender and transgender discrimination, and sexual violence.

Plot Summary

In 1989, Rackham College senior Arthur Oakes performs an act of kindness for a stranger named Tana Nighswander while they are visiting their mothers in prison. Tana’s sister, Jayne, extorts Arthur, threatening to have Arthur’s mother, Erin, killed unless Arthur steals $60,000 worth of rare books from his workplace, the college’s Brooks Library.

Jayne asks Arthur to steal the library’s most prized possession, the journal of occultist Enoch Crane, which contains instructions for summoning a dragon called King Sorrow. Instead, Arthur and his friends perform the summoning ceremony, commanding the dragon to dispatch Jayne. That Easter, King Sorrow violently kills Jayne in California. Meanwhile, Erin is paroled, and Arthur is accepted for graduate studies at Oxford University.

Arthur’s romantic interest, Gwen Underfoot, takes a job caring for Llewellyn Wren, the grandfather of their affluent friend, Colin. Gwen learns that their arrangement with King Sorrow is recurring: Every year, their friend group must name someone for him to kill. The next time she sees King Sorrow, Gwen challenges him to a riddling contest. She wins and names Llewellyn as the next sacrifice.

Arthur and his friends meet every year to determine the next sacrifice from a list that Colin assembles. In 1995, Allie Shiner discovers that King Sorrow plans to destroy British Airways (BA) Flight 238 to kill Christian cult leader Horation Matthews. Allie takes the same flight, believing that King Sorrow will spare it if she is onboard. She soon realizes, however, that she must kill Horation for the rest of the passengers to survive. Moments before King Sorrow destroys the airplane, Allie and Van McBride, her ex-fiancé, kill Horation. The flight lands safely, and Van and Allie reconcile and marry.

Five years later, Van and his twin sister, Donna, are abducted by a private security firm called Thermopylae. The firm’s head officer, Valentine, demands they reveal everything they know about the dragon that attacked BA 238. Donna’s belligerence fortifies her against interrogation. Van, on the other hand, experiences withdrawal from substance addiction and guilt over marrying Allie. Soon, they all realize that Thermopylae’s leaders have been named as sacrifices for King Sorrow. Valentine threatens to kill Donna if Van does not offer himself as a substitute sacrifice. To guarantee Donna’s survival, Van dies by suicide. Donna then kills Valentine and allows King Sorrow to destroy the Thermopylae base. She is rescued by Colin.

In 2002, Donna picks Francine Trout for the sacrifice, believing that Trout abducted and killed Donna’s childhood best friend, Cady Lewis. Trout, who is incarcerated at the Black Cricket House of Correction, is instantly killed when a gas explosion destroys the facility that Easter. Gwen and Erin join the rescue efforts as first responders. When their attempt to save a trapped woman fails, Gwen rebukes Donna for the collateral damage. Donna is unmoved, even after Trout is exonerated for Cady’s murder.

In 2006, Colin travels to the United Kingdom to join Arthur on a quest for the Sword of Strange Hangings, which Arthur alleges will allow them to slay King Sorrow. Colin and Arthur clash over using King Sorrow to enact positive change in the world. They work together to survive the treacherous journey and locate the sword in a crypt. Arthur draws the sword from its sheath, but Colin kills Arthur, refusing to sever their connection to King Sorrow. Colin leaves the sword and instead retrieves a protective martyr’s robe and a restorative vial of saint’s blood to extend his lifespan.

In 2015, Robin discovers Colin’s betrayal and shares the information with Gwen. Colin fears that Gwen will act against him, so he preemptively names her as the next sacrifice to King Sorrow. When Gwen confronts Colin about Arthur’s murder and her selection as a sacrifice in front of their friends, Allie sides with her. Gwen receives further support from Tana and Robin Fellows, a trans woman who befriended Allie and Van on BA 238, which prompts Gwen to tell them everything about King Sorrow.

Gwen hatches a plan to slay the dragon: transforming Arthur’s soul into a powerful sword. Colin and Donna ambush them, but they are surprised by the appearance of Tana and Jayne’s mother, who wants vengeance. Tana kills Daphne. When Donna realizes that Colin has been working with Thermopylae for years, she gives Gwen the saint’s blood to heal her injuries. Colin is killed by a ghost he summons.

On Easter eve, Gwen, Allie, Donna, Tana, and Robin perform a séance in the Rackham College library tower to draw Arthur and Van’s souls back into the world as a sword and shield. When King Sorrow attacks, Donna sacrifices herself to distract him. Gwen cuts off the dragon’s tail and tricks him into swallowing himself.

Tana and Allie marry. Gwen completes a book that Arthur wrote about dragonslaying. Gwen realizes that another dragon has caused various disasters in the six years after King Sorrow’s defeat, but Robin encourages her to let other people deal with it.