King Sorrow

Name: King Sorrow
Author: Joe Hill

by Joe Hill

Genre

Horror, Paranormal, Fantasy, Thriller

Year

2025

Pages

535

Contents

Overview

King Sorrow follows Arthur Oakes, a young student librarian whose life is already shadowed by his mother’s imprisonment, as an act of kindness draws him into the orbit of the dangerous Nighswander family. When threats against his mother force him to steal from Rackham College’s rare-book collection, Arthur turns increasingly toward a close circle of friends gathered around the eerie Wren estate, The Briars.

That circle includes brilliant, controlling Colin Wren; sharp and compassionate Gwen Underfoot; twins Donna and Donovan “Van” McBride; and restless Allison “Allie” Shiner. Their experiments with psychic phenomena, occult artifacts, and a sinister old journal lead them toward King Sorrow, a dragon-like force from the Long Dark whose bargains promise protection but demand terrible moral costs.

The novel blends campus drama, supernatural horror, conspiracy thriller, and dark coming-of-age story. Its central conflicts ask what people will do to protect loved ones, how guilt becomes power, and whether evil can ever be used without remaking its users.

Plot Summary ⚠️ Spoilers

Arthur Oakes begins the story as a student at Rackham College, burdened by visits to his imprisoned mother, Dr. Erin Oakes, at Black Cricket Women’s House of Correction. A chance encounter with Tana Nighswander and her volatile family draws him into danger. After Arthur lends Tana his hoodie and later accidentally injures Tana’s mother during a prison visit, Jayne Nighswander and Ronnie Volpe exploit the situation. They show Arthur proof they can reach Erin in prison and force him to steal rare books from the Brooks Library to repay drug money Tana lost.

Arthur’s friends gather around The Briars, the estate of Colin Wren and his grandfather Llewellyn. Colin investigates psychic phenomena, first exposing Donna and Van McBride’s fake twin telepathy but then discovering uncanny connections between Arthur and Gwen Underfoot. The group watches films of an earlier experiment involving a fabricated ghost, Elwood Hondo, and becomes fascinated by the possibility that collective belief can make unreal entities real. Under growing pressure from Jayne, Arthur steals Enoch Crane’s skin-bound journal from the library. At The Briars, the friends read Crane’s accounts of King Sorrow, a dragon from the Long Dark, and attempt a ritual.

The summoning succeeds. Arthur pursues the ghostly Enoch Crane, removes his beating heart, and offers it to King Sorrow. In exchange for protection, the group names Jayne Nighswander and Ronnie Volpe as targets. King Sorrow marks them with invisible serpent brands and warns that if they falter, one of their own lives may be required. Jayne and Ronnie flee west, but Sorrow hunts them down at an abandoned drive-in, killing Ronnie and burning Jayne alive. The group learns that the bargain is not a one-time escape: every Easter, King Sorrow demands another victim.

Over the years, the friends’ lives bend around that pact. Allie chooses Horation Matthews, a white supremacist cult leader, but Sorrow manipulates events so Horation is on a transatlantic flight. Allie and Van board the plane to prevent mass death; Horation is killed only after terrifying midair chaos involving King Sorrow, F-16s, and a shattered window. Later, private and federal-linked operatives led by Joe Valentine, whose real name is Norman Barclay, abduct Donna and Van to study their marks and weaponize Sorrow. The captivity ends in disaster: Van kills himself to deny their captors leverage, Donna kills Valentine, and King Sorrow destroys the Cherokee Island facility before Colin rescues Donna and negotiates with Mr. Francis, Paul Follett.

The annual killings continue and corrode the group. Donna’s choice of Francine Trout leads King Sorrow to destroy Black Cricket prison, killing hundreds, including an innocent survivor Gwen tries to rescue. Arthur, who has withdrawn into scholarship and dragon lore in England, searches for a way to end Sorrow. Colin joins him on a quest for relics in caves near Slaughterbridge, where they confront the troll Svangur. Arthur finds the Sword of Strange Hangings and other holy objects, but Colin betrays him, stabbing Arthur with the sword. Colin takes the saint’s blood, the martyr’s robe, and Arthur’s Glass, then lies about Arthur’s fate while using the blood to preserve his youth.

Years later, Gwen learns the truth piece by piece. Robin Fellows confronts a troll in Cornwall who claims Colin murdered Arthur, and Gwen’s research suggests Colin has manipulated the group’s target lists for his own interests. King Sorrow then tells Gwen that Colin has chosen her as the next sacrifice. When Gwen confronts Colin publicly, Allie attacks him, and the group fractures. Daphne Nighswander, Jayne’s mother, has also been released from prison and obsessively blames the so-called Goodbye Six for Jayne’s death. Armed and vengeful, she ambushes the group near Rackham, shoots Colin, Gwen, and Donna, and is killed by Tana with a scalding coffee urn.

Gwen survives severe wounds only because Donna, newly remorseful after a dream of Van, steals saint’s blood from Colin and gives it to Robin, Allie, and Tana to heal her. Colin, weakened in the hospital, tries to summon Elwood Hondo as a weapon, but Hondo appears and smothers him. Gwen remains infected and too weak for a straightforward fight, yet she forms a last plan: summon Arthur’s soul from the Long Dark and use him as a living sword against King Sorrow. Donna initially rejects the plan, but the surviving women—Gwen, Allie, Tana, Robin, and Donna—rally at Brooks Library.

In the Special Collection, they use Arthur’s notebooks, a cracked Russian mirror, an old video of Arthur, and the martyr’s robe to reach him. As Easter dawns, King Sorrow attacks the library tower. Donna drinks dragon tears and breathes fire into the dragon’s face, sacrificing herself to wound him. Gwen, guided by Arthur through the video and a crossword, draws a blade of light from Arthur’s image. Allie reaches into the same past-image and retrieves Van’s sand-dollar shield. Gwen pins King Sorrow’s tail with Arthur’s sword; the dragon, drawn by Gwen’s sorrow and trapped by his own appetite, begins devouring himself until he vanishes.

Gwen nearly dies and briefly meets Arthur, Van, Donna, and Colin in a dreamlike beach vision, but returns to life. She recovers slowly, attends Donna’s remembrance, and later helps complete Arthur’s Toolkit for the Well-Prepared Dragonslayer. Years pass, but great fires and explosions around the world suggest that King Sorrow was not the only dragon. In 2022, Gwen and Robin glimpse another dragon in footage of the Mariupol maternity hospital strike. Gwen wants to keep fighting, but Robin reminds her that they cannot fight every dragon themselves, ending the story with survival, warning, and the burden of unfinished work.

Characters

Arthur Oakes

Arthur is the student librarian whose attempt to protect his imprisoned mother leads him into rare-book theft, occult experimentation, and the original pact with King Sorrow. He later becomes a scholar of dragon lore and seeks a way to destroy the creature, remaining central even after his death through his notebooks, video image, and soul-sword.
Gwen Underfoot

Gwen is a sharp, working-class friend of Arthur’s whose compassion, EMT training, and moral clarity repeatedly counter the group’s compromises. She becomes King Sorrow’s chosen victim and ultimately leads the final plan to summon Arthur and defeat the dragon.
Colin Wren

Colin is the wealthy, brilliant organizer at The Briars whose fascination with experiments, technology, and power shapes the group’s occult path. Over time he becomes increasingly controlling and pragmatic, manipulating targets, betraying Arthur, and trying to preserve his influence through artifacts and surveillance.
Allison “Allie” Shiner

Allie is one of Arthur’s closest friends, a data-minded and emotionally volatile member of the group who carries guilt over the deaths caused by King Sorrow. Her flight with Van to confront Horation Matthews and her later sobriety, courage, and loyalty make her essential to both survival and the final confrontation.
Donna McBride

Donna is Van’s twin, fierce, wounded, and often cruel in response to her own trauma and guilt. She helps summon King Sorrow, later becomes complicit in devastating choices, but ultimately turns against Colin’s logic and sacrifices herself by using dragon tears against King Sorrow.
Donovan “Van” McBride

Van is Donna’s twin and Arthur’s friend, first presented as a joker and skeptic but later revealed as deeply vulnerable and loyal. His love for Allie and bond with Donna shape major choices, and his death in captivity becomes a moral turning point for Donna.
King Sorrow

King Sorrow is the dragon-like sovereign from the Long Dark summoned by the friends through Enoch Crane’s journal and their collective ritual. He grants protection and vengeance but demands annual Easter victims, feeding on fear, grief, and moral compromise until his own appetite becomes the means of his defeat.
Dr. Erin Oakes

Erin is Arthur’s imprisoned mother, a pastor-professor whose parole and safety motivate Arthur’s earliest crimes. After release, she becomes a chaplain and later officiates key ceremonies, representing hard-won grace and moral accountability.
Tana Nighswander

Tana is Jayne’s younger sister, pregnant and exploited when Arthur first becomes entangled with the Nighswanders. She survives abuse, raises Jett, builds a life in recovery, and becomes a crucial ally to Gwen and Allie in the final struggle.
Jayne Nighswander

Jayne is the violent enforcer who blackmails Arthur into stealing rare books and threatens Erin through prison contacts. Her death as King Sorrow’s first named target establishes the pact’s terrifying reality and its moral consequences.
Ronnie Volpe

Ronnie is Jayne’s armed associate and partner in threatening Arthur and his friends. He is named alongside Jayne in the first bargain with King Sorrow and dies during their flight west.
Daphne Nighswander

Daphne is Tana and Jayne’s mother, a violent prisoner whose long fixation on the Goodbye Six turns into a revenge campaign after her release. Her ambush kills Colin and gravely wounds Gwen and Donna before Tana kills her.
Llewellyn Wren

Llewellyn is Colin’s grandfather, a former psychological-warfare figure whose occult collections and Elwood Hondo film help shape the group’s belief in egregores. His illness and peaceful death by dragon tears deepen Gwen and Colin’s arcs.
Robin Fellows

Robin is a journalist and later close ally of Gwen, first tied to Allie through the BA 238 crisis. She investigates the troll story, helps expose Colin’s lies, and supports Gwen during the final plan against King Sorrow.
Enoch Crane

Enoch Crane is the dead occultist whose skin-bound journal gives the friends the lore and ritual framework for contacting King Sorrow. In the summoning, Arthur pursues Crane and offers his heart as the sacrifice that completes the pact.
Elwood Hondo

Elwood Hondo is a fictional killer-entity from Llewellyn’s earlier experiment who becomes a recurring supernatural presence linked to film, séances, and the Long Dark. Colin later tries to summon him as a tool, only for Hondo to kill Colin instead.
Horation Matthews

Horation Matthews, also traveling as Randy Mathers, is a white supremacist cult leader chosen by Allie as an Easter target. His presence on BA 238 turns Sorrow’s bargain into a midair crisis that forces Allie and Van to act to save the passengers.
Joe Valentine

Joe Valentine, whose real name is Norman Barclay, leads the private-contractor operation that abducts and tortures Donna and Van to study King Sorrow. His escalating cruelty ends when Donna kills him and commands Sorrow to destroy the Cherokee Island facility.
Mr. Francis

Mr. Francis, later named Paul Follett, is a federal-linked handler involved in the captivity of Donna and Van. More controlled than Valentine, he becomes the figure Colin negotiates with after Cherokee and represents the state’s attempt to manage King Sorrow.
Stuart “Svangur” Finger

Svangur is the troll Colin and Arthur seek near Slaughterbridge, disguised as derelict guide Stu Finger. He leads them to relics including the Sword of Strange Hangings and later reveals truths that implicate Colin in Arthur’s death.
Cady Lewis

Cady is Donna’s childhood friend whose abduction becomes Donna’s formative trauma. Donna’s lifelong guilt over failing to save Cady shapes her rage, her warped ideas of justice, and later disasters tied to Francine Trout.
Francine Trout

Francine Trout is chosen by Donna as an Easter target because of a disputed confession in the Cady Lewis case. King Sorrow’s strike on Black Cricket prison kills hundreds, and later evidence suggests Francine may not have been Cady’s true killer.
Amos Finch

Amos Finch is later linked by evidence to Cady Lewis’s murder, undermining the confession that led Donna to choose Francine Trout. His posthumous exposure deepens the moral horror of the Black Cricket catastrophe.
Wendy Arthur

Wendy Arthur is an inmate survivor Gwen and Erin try to rescue from the destroyed Black Cricket prison. Her death during the collapse makes the human cost of Donna’s choice immediate and personal for Gwen.
Jett Nighswander

Jett is Tana’s son, raised after the Nighswander family’s collapse. As an adult firefighter, he helps rescue Gwen from the ruined Brooks Library and is urged by Gwen to search for his trapped mother.
Bridget Fleming

Bridget Fleming is the Boston antiquarian connected to the stolen books and the missing Crane journal. The failed attempt to recover the journal from her orbit contributes to later arson and to Colin’s concealed manipulations.
Sheldon

Sheldon is an unstable customer connected to Bridget Fleming who later burns her building. His arson destroys a route to the Crane journal and becomes part of the chain of consequences around the group’s attempt to undo Sorrow.
Dr. Patrick

Dr. Patrick is one of the interrogators at the Cherokee Island facility, pressing Van and Donna for information about King Sorrow. Her eventual suicide during the facility’s collapse shows the terror and guilt consuming the operation from within.
Salem

Salem is a guard and enforcer at Cherokee Island who helps restrain and torture Van and Donna. He survives long enough to become one of the last defenders before King Sorrow kills him during the destruction of the facility.
Nurse Dover

Nurse Dover is a medical staff member at the facility holding Van and Donna, outwardly cheerful while participating in their captivity. Her distress after Allie’s retaliation reveals that the captors are also frightened and grieving inside the operation.
Nurse Lansing

Nurse Lansing is another facility nurse who monitors Van and Donna and intervenes medically during interrogations. He is accidentally killed during the blackout chaos after King Sorrow speaks through Donna.
Frank Heck

Frank Heck is the armed officer on BA 238 who interrogates Allie and tries to manage the crisis aboard the flight. His intervention fails when Horation overpowers him, and his death becomes part of the official cover-up.
Raymond Pinet

Raymond Pinet is a World War II veteran aboard BA 238 who recognizes the crisis in spiritual and dragon-like terms rather than accepting official explanations. His bravery during the struggle with Horation helps create the opening that saves the plane.
Gregg Pinet

Gregg is Raymond Pinet’s son and later Donna’s intended fiancé during a period of attempted normal life. The disastrous pre-wedding outing and family reaction help show the group’s bonds fraying under accumulated trauma.
Reverend Dr. Erin Oakes

Reverend Dr. Erin Oakes is Erin’s later title after prison, when she becomes a chaplain and spiritual guide. She officiates weddings and Donna’s remembrance, giving language to accountability, grief, and grace.
Arthur’s Glass

Arthur’s Surrealist’s Glass is not a person but functions as a major artifact, revealing hidden supernatural truths such as dryads, trolls, and the Long Dark. Its use helps Arthur and Colin navigate Svangur’s world and later exposes Colin’s inner void.

Themes

Joe Hill’s King Sorrow is organized around the terrifying idea that stories, rituals, and shared belief can become real—and that what we summon to solve our problems may become the problem. The friends’ stoned experiment at The Briars begins as play, scholarship, and occult curiosity, but the invented logic of King Sorrow hardens into a binding moral universe: marks on their bodies, Easter deadlines, and a dragon that feeds on anguish.

The corruption of righteous violence. Arthur first agrees to use King Sorrow against Jayne and Ronnie because they are cruel, dangerous, and threatening his mother. Later choices—Horation Matthews, Francine Trout, geopolitical targets—show how easily punishment becomes policy. Colin’s arguments about deterrence, sacrifice, and "greater good" expose the seduction of moral arithmetic: if the victim seems bad enough, the killing feels clean. The book repeatedly proves it is not.
Guilt, complicity, and the longing for redemption. Nearly every major character lives under a burden: Arthur’s thefts and betrayal of Gwen, Allie’s choices aboard BA 238, Donna’s trauma over Cady Lewis and later catastrophes, Gwen’s participation in the pact. Redemption comes not through innocence but through action—Allie saving the plane, Donna finally turning against Sorrow, Tana protecting others despite her own abuse, and Gwen risking herself to end the cycle.
Friendship as both refuge and danger. The original group forms around tenderness: comforting Arthur over Erin, welcoming Gwen, protecting one another from Jayne. Yet that same loyalty enables secrecy, escalation, and shared denial. The "Get Even Club" begins as solidarity and becomes a machine for choosing victims. By the end, a smaller fellowship—Gwen, Allie, Tana, Robin, and Donna—reclaims friendship as mutual accountability rather than blind allegiance.
Power, surveillance, and institutional violence. The novel links supernatural horror to prisons, intelligence agencies, private contractors, tech firms, and war. Black Cricket, Cherokee Island, Dragonware, and Colin’s data-driven targeting all suggest that monsters flourish when systems hide cruelty behind procedure, security, or innovation. Colin’s descent from curious rich boy to manipulative technocrat is one of the book’s sharpest warnings.
Memory, grief, and storytelling. Fractured recollections of the summoning, Arthur’s unfinished notebooks, Van’s memoir, Gwen’s coauthored Toolkit, and the recurring dead who speak from mirrors or dreams all ask how survivors make meaning from horror. The ending widens the dragon into a metaphor for catastrophe itself—wildfires, Notre-Dame, Beirut, Ukraine—suggesting that Sorrow is not only one monster but a pattern: human destruction made mythic, recurring wherever grief is harvested and spectacle overwhelms conscience.