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Monthly Archives: October 2025

King Sorrow: A Review

Joe Hill’s new novel, King Sorrow, is his first full-length work in almost a decade, and I feel it was absolutely worth the wait.

King Sorrow is the story of Arthur Oakes and his friends, and the dragon to which they find themselves pact-bound. It’s New England in the early 90s, and Arthur is a young black man working in the campus library at Rackham College. His mother is serving a prison sentence at a nearby facility, and so he stays close by so that he can continue to visit her as her parole date approaches. Arthur has his eyes on a graduate program in England once he graduates, but his plans are disrupted when a blackmail scheme is launched against him. His mother has made some enemies on the inside, and the daughter of one threatens injury to Arthur’s mom unless he cooperates. So it is that Arthur begins to steal rare books from the college library’s collection for the blackmailers to sell.

Arthur’s friends eventually find out about what’s going on, of course, but they realize that one of the books that Arthur has been instructed to steal might contain the answers to their problem. The Crane journal, a grimoire bound in human skin, has been a part of the rare book collection for years, and inside it are the instructions to summon King Sorrow, a dragon who is willing to make pacts with humans. One night, in a weed and booze-fueled haze, the group gathers around a table and calls out to him. A bargain is struck. Arthur’s blackmailers will be dead by Easter, and he and his friends will be protected.

The problem with deals, though, is always in the details. Arthur and his friends soon learn that they must choose a new sacrificial offering once a year, or their own lives are forfeit. If the only way to summon King Sorrow is found in the grimoire, then the way to rid oneself of him must be contained in it as well, but the book itself made its way to the blackmailers and their buyer before the Easter deadline.

King Sorrow is a fantastic slow burn. I’ve missed Hill’s writing a great deal of late, but I was thrilled to get a chance to tackle this one early. It was released on 10/21, and so it’s been loose in the world for almost a week. My utmost thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

Queen Demon: A Review

The sequel to Martha Wells’ phenomenal Witch King is here!

In the distant past, the Hierarchs entered the world and seized power. They killed indiscriminately, razing city-states, exerting control over everything, and turning families against themselves. Many tried to stand against them and failed, and for a time, they were believed to be unstoppable. That changed with the arrival of Kaiisteron, Prince of the Fourth House of the Underearth, the one who would come to be known as the Witch King. Kai was a demon inhabiting a human body, and when his host’s people were overrun by the Hierarchs, he was captured. Soon, however, he was taken in by a local nobleman named Bashasa. Bashasa had been preparing to launch a revolution, and befriending Kai forces him to accelerate the plans, as together they manage to kill a pair of Hierarchs.

Decades later, Kai and his allies were split up and imprisoned, left for dead by a group of conspirators who sought to seize control of the Rising World and establish a new empire. They underestimated him. During the events of Witch King, Kai took a new host body, rescued his best friend Ziede, and set off to find out who had betrayed them and why. Classic revenge quest.

Now, reunited with his friends and found family, Kai has a new goal: investigate the origins of the Hierarchs and ensure that they can return to threaten the Rising World again. At the end of Witch King, Dahin, Ziede’s brother-in-law, was hot on the trail of the origin of the Hierarchs. Now he may have proof that those origins are not what everyone believed, and that the Hierarchs are not as fully gone as everyone would like.

Kai must still grapple with the past in Queen Demon, with chapters alternating the early days of the rebellion against the Hierarchs and the modern day struggle for the mysterious Well that powered their abilities. Both timelines see the Fourth Prince navigating the complexities of human relationships, war, and politics. Kai’s growth as a character is evident, largely due to the death of his rescuer, Bashasa, at some point in the past. The legacy he left behind is clearly still serving as Kai’s guiding star as he navigates through his relationships with humans, witches, and other demons.

Martha Wells has been a favorite author for years, since I first picked up a copy of All Systems Red. I love the setting of the Rising World novels, and I will happily return any time we get the opportunity.

Queen Demon is out in the world as of Tuesday, 10/7/25. Go get it.

My utmost thanks, as always, to Netgalley and Tor for an advance copy in exchange for a fair review.