Hexologists

By: Josiah Bancroft

Published by Orbit, 2023

<b>The first book in a wildly inventive and mesmerizing new fantasy series from acclaimed author Josiah Bancroft where magical mysteries abound and only one team can solve them: The Hexologists. "Bancroft is a magician." -- Madeline Miller, <i>New York Times </i>bestselling author of <i>Circe</i></b><br> <br> <br> <br> <b>"Fantastic! <i>The Hexologists</i> fizzes eloquently with wit and elegance, but also has marvelous worldbuilding and an excellent plot - and a central pair of characters who I quite simply love. A cocktail of a book made with the very best champagne." -- Genevieve Cogman, author of <i>The Invisible Library</i></b><br> <br> <br> <br> The Hexologists, Iz and Warren Wilby, are quite accustomed to helping desperate clients with the bugbears of city life. Aided by hexes and a bag of charmed relics, the Wilbies have recovered children abducted by chimney-wraiths, removed infestations of barb-nosed incubi, and ventured into the Gray Plains of the Unmade to soothe a troubled ghost. Well-acquainted with the weird, they never shy away from a challenging case.<br> <br> <br> <br> But when they are approached by the royal secretary and told the king pleads to be baked into a cake--going so far as to wedge himself inside a lit oven--the Wilbies soon find themselves embroiled in a mystery that could very well see the nation turned on its head. Their effort to expose a royal secret buried under forty years of lies brings them nose to nose with a violent anti-royalist gang, avaricious ghouls, alchemists who draw their power from a hell-like dimension, and a bookish dragon who only occasionally eats people.<br> <br> <br> <br> Armed with a love toughened by adversity and a stick of chalk that can conjure light from the darkness, hope from the hopeless, Iz and Warren Wilby are ready for a case that will test every spell, skill, and odd magical artifact in their considerable bag of tricks.<br> <br> <br> <br> <b>"Bancroft is a wonder as ever! <i>The Hexologists</i> was a joyous delight on every page-- buoyantly inventive, witty, poignant, gripping, and deeply satisfying." -- Madeline Miller, <i>New York Times </i>bestselling author of <i>Circe</i><br> <br> <br> <br> "Josiah Bancroft's imagination will astound you. One of the most inventive fantasy authors out there." -- Fonda Lee, author of the Green Bone Saga <br> <br> <br> <br> "Bancroft has returned to the page in force, deploying his crystal prose and razored wit around a tale that mixes whimsy and threat in equal measure. He's a gift to the genre<i>." </i>-- Mark Lawrence, author of <i>The Book That Wouldn't Burn</i></b>