King Sorrow

SOME PROMISES SHOULD NEVER BE MADE...***A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK***'A tour de force...huge, sprawling - and absolutely fantastic' THE GUARDIAN'Joe Hill gloriously resurrects the doorstop horror blockbuster' ALAN MOORE'A soaring epic' PAUL TREMBLAY'Exhilarating and haunting...perfection from start to finish' DAILY EXPRESS'A commanding, captivating read' FINANCIAL TIMES'Epic...a rich response to the horrors and hopes of living today' DAILY MAILBookish dreamer Arthur Oakes is a student at Rackham College, Maine, renowned for its frosty winters and beautiful buildings.But his idyll - and burgeoning romance with Gwen Underfoot - is shattered when local drug dealers force him into a terrible crime: stealing rare and valuable books from the exceptional college library.Trapped and desperate, Arthur turns to his closest friends for help: the wealthy, irrepressible Colin Wren; brave, beautiful Allison Shiner; the battling twins Donna and Donovan McBride; and brainy, bold Gwen. Together they dream up an impossible, fantastical scheme that they scarcely imagine will work: to summon the fabled dragon King Sorrow to kill those tormenting Arthur.But the six stumble backwards into a deadly bargain - they soon learn they must choose a new sacrifice for King Sorrow each year or one of them will become his next victim. Unleashing consequences they can neither predict nor control, this promise will, over the course of four decades, shape and endanger their lives in ways they could never expect.'A brilliantly Faustian fable with a heart as huge as a dragon's' RUTH WARE'A wild, genre-defying journey, packed with all sorts of unexpected twists' DAILY MIRROR'A glorious, wild ride' NEW YORK TIMES'Epic! Hill's best and most ambitious work to date' LINWOOD BARCLAY'A monster of a book...a vast, brimstoned, relentless zinger' NICK HARKAWAY