If you are waiting for Joe Hill’s latest release, King Sorrow, check out this list of readalikes we at Davenport Public Library have put together for you. Below you’ll find a mix of newer and older titles similar to King Sorrow, which was published on October 21st, 2025. As of this writing, all of these titles are owned by the Davenport Public Library. All descriptions are provided by the publishers.
Curious what King Sorrow is about? Check out the description below!
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Joe Hill, a chilling tale of modern-world dangers, dark academia, and the unexpected consequences of revenge as six friends dabble in the occult and are tragically, horrifyingly successful… calling forth an evil entity that demands regular human sacrifice.
Arthur Oakes is a reader, a dreamer, and a student at Rackham College, Maine, renowned for its frosty winters, exceptional library, and beautiful buildings. But his idyll—and burgeoning romance with Gwen Underfoot—is shattered when a local drug dealer and her partner corner him into one of the worst crimes he can imagine: stealing rare books from the college library.
Trapped and desperate, Arthur turns to his closest friends for comfort and help. Together they dream up a wild, fantastical scheme to free Arthur from the cruel trap in which he finds himself. Wealthy, irrepressible Colin Wren suggests using the unnerving Crane journal (bound in the skin of its author) to summon a dragon to do their bidding. The others—brave, beautiful Alison Shiner; the battling twins Donna and Donovan McBride; and brainy, bold Gwen—don’t hesitate to join Colin in an effort to smash reality and bring a creature of the impossible into our world.
But there’s nothing simple about dealing with dragons, and their pact to save Arthur becomes a terrifying bargain in which the six must choose a new sacrifice for King Sorrow every year—or become his next meal. – William Morrow
Look below for readalikes similar to King Sorrow.
Below the Grand Hotel by Cat Scully
The Great Gatsby meets Hellraiser.
Mabel Rose Dixon will do anything to become a Ziegfeld girl–including picking the pockets of the wealthy NYC elite to fund her way to stardom. When she picks the wrong pocket, Mabel loses her soul to a hotel run by demons and tumbles into the world of The Grand Hotel, a place where any artist can make it big.
Mabel’s greatest wish to be famous is granted. Every night, she performs as the starring act to a crowded theater and finds she is never without patrons. But Mabel quickly learns that losing her soul to get everything she ever wanted comes at a much steeper cost than what she bargained for. She must steal her soul back before the Grand’s annual May’s Eve Ball or become a demon herself forever.
With stylish art deco design and beautiful illustrations by the author, this stunning debut novel by renowned New England artist Cat Scully is a crown jewel for the dark gothic horror lover’s collection. Welcome to The Grand Hotel. We hope you enjoy your stay. – Clash Books
Book of Night by Holly Black
Charlie Hall has never found a lock she couldn’t pick, a book she couldn’t steal, or a bad decision she wouldn’t make.
She’s spent half her life working for gloamists, magicians who manipulate shadows to peer into locked rooms, strangle people in their beds, or worse. Gloamists guard their secrets greedily, creating an underground economy of grimoires. And to rob their fellow magicians, they need Charlie Hall.
Now, she’s trying to distance herself from past mistakes, but getting out isn’t easy. Bartending at a dive, she’s still entirely too close to the corrupt underbelly of the Berkshires. Not to mention that her sister Posey is desperate for magic, and that Charlie’s shadowless, and possibly soulless, boyfriend has been hiding things from her. When a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie descends into a maelstrom of murder and lies.
Determined to survive, she’s up against a cast of doppelgangers, mercurial billionaires, gloamists, and the people she loves best in the world—all trying to steal a secret that will give them vast and terrible power. – Tor Books
Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton
When all hell breaks loose, you need a devil on your side
Sarita has been watched over by a guardian angel her entire life. She calls him Angelo, and keeps him a secret. But secrets can’t stay buried forever…
When Angelo murders someone she loves, Sarita begins to see what’s really been lurking in the shadows surrounding her. And she will have to embrace the evil within if she hopes to make it out alive.
Johnny Compton, critically acclaimed author of The Spite House and master of dread, takes you on a terrifying race of one woman against the hordes of hell. – Tor Nightfire
Fiend by Alma Katsu
Historical horror maven Alma Katsu turns her talents to the modern world for the first time, in this terrifying tale about an all-powerful family with an ancient evil under its thumb.
Imagine if the Sackler family had a demon at their beck and call.
The Berisha family runs one of the largest import-export companies in the world, and they’ve always been lucky. Their rivals suffer strokes. Inconvenient buildings catch on fire. Earthquakes swallow up manufacturing plants, destroying harmful evidence. Things always seem to work out for the Berishas. They’re blessed.
At least that is what Zef, the patriarch, has always told his three children. And each of them knows their place in the family—Dardan, as the only male heir, must prepare to take over as keeper of the Berisha secrets, Maris’s most powerful contribution, much to her dismay, will be to marry strategically, and Nora’s job, as the youngest, is to just stay out of the way. But when things stop going as planned, and the family blessing starts looking more like a curse, the Berishas begin to splinter, each hatching their own secret scheme. They didn’t get to be one of the richest families in the world without spilling a little blood, but this time, it might be their own. – G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Girl Dinner by Olivie Blake
Good girls deserve a treat.
Every member of The House, the most exclusive sorority on campus, and all its alumni, are beautiful, high-achieving, and universally respected.
After a freshman year she would rather forget, sophomore Nina Kaur knows being one of the chosen few accepted into The House is the first step in her path to the brightest possible future. Once she’s taken into their fold, the House will surely ease her fears of failure and protect her from those who see a young woman on her own as easy prey.
Meanwhile, adjunct professor Dr. Sloane Hartley is struggling to return to work after accepting a demotion to support her partner’s new position at the cutthroat University. After 18 months at home with her newborn daughter, Sloane’s clothes don’t fit right, her girl-dad husband isn’t as present as he thinks he is, and even the few hours a day she’s apart from her child fill her psyche with paralyzing ennui. When invited to be The House’s academic liaison, Sloane enviously drinks in the way the alumnae seem to have it all, achieving a level of collective perfection that Sloane so desperately craves.
As Nina and Sloane each get drawn deeper into the arcane rituals of the sisterhood, they learn that living well comes with bloody costs. And when they are finally invited to the table, they will have to decide just how much they can stomach in the name of solidarity and power. – Tor Books
Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman
To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”
When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.
Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.
But Other Mommy needs an answer.
Incidents Around the House is a chilling, wholly unique tale of true horror about a family as haunted as their home. – Del Rey
The Midnight Club by Margot Harrison
A twisty, nostalgic, emotionally thrilling novel about a group of estranged college friends who experiment with a secret substance that allows them to re-live their memories—and the fallout when they uncover startling truths about a dark event from their past
“How could you leave the past undisturbed when it was hiding parts of you from yourself?”
It’s been twenty-five years since The Midnight Club last convened. A tight-knit group of college friends bonded by late nights at the campus literary magazine, they’re also bonded by something darker: the death of their brilliant friend Jennet junior year. But now, decades later, a mysterious invitation has pulled them back to the pine-shrouded Vermont town where it all began.
As the estranged friends gather for a weeklong campus reunion, they soon learn that their host has an ulterior motive: she wants them to uncover the truth about the night Jennet died, and she’s provided them with an extraordinary method—a secret substance that helps them not only remember but relive the past.
But each one of the friends has something to hide. And the more they question each other, the deeper they dive into their own memories, the more they understand that nothing they thought they knew about their college years, and that fateful night, is true.
The Midnight Club explores that innate desire to revisit our first loves, our biggest mistakes, and the gulf between who we are and who we hoped we’d be. – Graydon House
Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom
Set in Colonial New England, Slewfoot is a tale of magic and mystery, of triumph and terror as only dark fantasist Brom can tell it.
Connecticut, 1666: An ancient spirit awakens in a dark wood. The wildfolk call him Father, slayer, protector. The colonists call him Slewfoot, demon, devil. To Abitha, a recently widowed outcast, alone and vulnerable in her pious village, he is the only one she can turn to for help.
Together, they ignite a battle between pagan and Puritan – one that threatens to destroy the entire village, leaving nothing but ashes and bloodshed in their wake.
This terrifying tale of bewitchery features more than two dozen of Brom’s haunting full-color paintings and brilliant endpapers, fully immersing readers in this wild and unforgiving world. – Tor Nightfire
