King Sorrow

Arthur Oakes is a bookish student at Rackham College in Maine, a place of hard winters and handsome buildings, until local drug dealers force him to steal rare volumes from the college's remarkable library. Cornered, he turns to his friends: wealthy Colin Wren, fearless Allison Shiner, the squabbling McBride twins and Gwen Underfoot, the clever girl he is falling for. Their solution sounds almost like a joke: summon the fabled dragon King Sorrow and set him on Arthur's tormentors.

The dragon answers, and the price is steep. Every year the six must choose a new sacrifice for him, or one of them will become his next victim. Joe Hill follows that bargain across four decades of friendship, guilt and gathering dread. A vast, absorbing horror epic for anyone who likes their dark fantasy rooted in people worth caring about.