Joe Hill is back with a new book—his first in nine years. And it’s a thick one: almost 900 pages. But don’t let the size scare you. I enjoyed every page. King Sorrow tells the story of six friends: Arthur Oakes, Gwen Underfoot, Colin Wren, Donna and her twin brother Donovan “Van” McBride, and Allie Shiner.

When we enter the story, Arthur’s mother is in prison, and due to certain circumstances, one of her fellow inmates becomes aware of Arthur and the fact that he works at the library—more specifically, in the section that handles valuable books. The inmate, Daphne, begins to threaten Arthur through her two daughters, Tana and Jayne, and Jayne’s boyfriend Ronnie. She demands that Arthur steal valuable books in exchange for not harming his mother. At first, Arthur does as she asks, but eventually, he realizes that he can’t continue. Together, the group of friends decides that their best way out of the situation is to summon a dragon—King Sorrow—from The Long Dark to help them. The only problem is that, in return, the dragon wants one human life each Easter. If they don’t provide a name, one of them will be his payment.

This might not sound like such a difficult deal to live with. I mean, condemning someone to death isn’t easy, but there are a lot of evil men and women out there who deserve to die, right? Then again, there might be more to it than first meets the eye—and really, can you trust a dragon?

This is just the beginning of the book. A lot—and I mean a lot—happens over the nearly 900 pages, and I enjoyed all of it. I never felt that the book was too long, or that the plot was too much or too complicated. It was exactly what it needed to be, and all the characters played their parts just as they should. Hill shows that he is a very talented writer and that he can master steering a story this long from the beginning to the end. Not everyone can do that successfully.

I’m not sure how much Hill has been influenced by his father, but there are a lot of similarities between the two, and it was fun to see that Hill included elements from his father’s books.

I’ll list them below, but if you prefer to discover them for yourself, please skip the text between the two SPOILER markers—or read them after you’ve finished the book to see if you caught them all.

Lilja's final words about King Sorrow: