WeHa Book Club

*Spoiler-Free Review*

This was a long one. And while I’m no stranger to longer books, it does tend to screw up the pace of my journey to 52 books in a year. Still ahead of schedule, but this is certainly a bump in the road.

With that said, this was a really fun read!! For those unfamiliar, Joe Hill is the son of Stephen King. It goes without saying that this draws certain comparisons to his famous father, but Hill absolutely stands on his own two feet.

I had previously read a number of Hill’s other works, including The Fireman, N0S4A2, Horns, and his collection of short stories previously titled 20th Century Ghosts and since renamed The Black Phone after the film. With a good-to-great rating for all of the above, I was extremely excited to check out his 2025 release, King Sorrow.

It’s a brick of a book, coming in at 881 pages (in hardcover), surpassing his previous mark of 768 pages for his dystopian epic, The Fireman. However, the pacing is fantastic; broken into several sections and fairly short chapters that make this tremendous undertaking feel a little more manageable. It doesn’t hurt that the plot is incredibly gripping, as well.

King Sorrow is essentially about a haunted book that summons a vengeful god in the form of a dragon. The dragon promises to take care of people who are causing problems in your life in exchange for certain sacrifices. Needless to say, things get a bit out of control when the group that summons him realize they must take one life each year in order to keep the dragon fed.

Well-developed characters and some truly great “peak” moments help this book stand out from Hill’s other works and truly feels like a new milestone for the talented son of a G.O.A.T. writer.

As a side note, as I’ve mentioned in other reviews, I tend to bounce back and forth between reading a physical book and listening to the audio book. Both, as you can imagine, come with a big range of quality. I really enjoy any Joe Hill book I read, but this audiobook was a real revelation.

Background sound effects and the use of a full voice cast at certain key moments help elevate a good story into a truly immersive experience. I would highly recommend you at least check out the audiobook to see if it’s for you. But either way, King Sorrow gets a full-throated endorsement from me.

As does most of Joe Hill’s library if you have yet to check out any of his stuff. Very consistently solid writer. Maybe start with The Fireman or N0S4A2, but King Sorrow is as good a choice as any. Enjoy!

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King Sorrow by Joe Hill