The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft is a 318 page novel published by Orbit in 2024, and is the first entry in a new series.
Genre: Fantasy
Subgenres: Steampunk, cozy
Synopsis: 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 The Hexologists.
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.
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.
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.
Opening Line:
“The king wishes to be cooked alive,” the royal secretary said, accepting the proffered saucer and cup and immediately setting both aside.
My Thoughts:
Josiah Bancroft is a criminally unsung fantasy author. His first novel, Senlin Ascends, was self-published and submitted to author Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. It made it to the final stage of the competition before losing to another novel, but had been reviewed so positively by the book bloggers that it gained its own following. It’s the first book in a now-completed tetralogy, The Books of Babel. The Hexlogists is the first book in his new series, and it is pretty darn great! A work of fantasy, this new world he has created has a healthy helping of steampunk elements, and some cozy factors to boot (although the stakes are certainly high).
It was bedlam, a hedonistic riot, or as Victor described it, “the usual whoop-de-do.”
Isolde and Warren Wilby are a very happily married couple known as The Hexologists, though it’s really only Is who practices the art, while War mostly cooks gourmet meals, acts as the brawn when called for, and takes over in social situations requiring the finesse that his wife lacks. Neither is much of a fan of the Crown and its policies, but find themselves hired to look into the matter of blackmail by someone claiming to be the illegitimate child of the king. Of course, there winds up being much, MUCH more going on behind the scenes, and our hexologists are in for quite the adventure.
“That is a Hex of Woe. Its bearer will suffer from insomnia, vertigo, tremors, impotence, styes, tinnitus, and galloping flatulence.”
Bancroft fleshes out this fantasy world with its politics and history of its magics: wizardry, alchemy, necromancy, and hexology. I admit to being a bit lost at times with the details of world building. But this was more than made up for with the fascinating characters, engaging adventures, and an abundance of lines that made me literally laugh out loud. I love how this author writes more unique fantasy rather than simply borrowing from what has become standard for the genre. The result of that combined with the humorous voice of his writing is simply delightful. It’s got the discipline of hex-casting, an incubus who can tell you the details about any corpse buried within its jurisdiction, a gargoyle Goddess of Grotesques, and a gourmand dragon inside what amounts to a bag of holding and who offers many moments of hilarity throughout the story.
He soothed her with walks and theater tickets and outings to bookshops, museums, and restaurants where he confounded the staff by pouring entire boats of gravy into a tattered carpetbag that vented fire like a steak flambé.
There is some mild violence in this book, and several fade to black scenes of our heroes getting randy, but nothing graphic in either regard. This book does not end on a cliffhanger, but just leaves the door open for further escapades for our intrepid duo. Reading this was a delight and I definitely plan on continuing in the series when the sequel is released. I cannot recommend this author enough to fans of the genre!
Jessica Crawford 