Paromita's Reviews > The Hexologists

The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft follows the exploits of Isolde and Warren Selby, a pair of magical investigators who are also married to each other, as they try to solve a mystery using their specialised skills. Having very much enjoyed Josiah Bancroft's imaginative worldbuilding and beautiful writing in The Books of Babel, I was very eager to read this novel.

As always, Bancroft's writing was very good and flowed smoothly throughout the story. The main characters, Isolde and Warren, were a pleasure to read about as were some secondary characters such as Isolde's mother and a certain wizard. The worldbuilding was innovative - be it the various kinds of magical practitioners, creatures or spells. Especially enjoyable was the "portalmanteau" which was a key tool used by the Wilbys' during their investigation - suffice to say it was a repository of magical curiosities. A reader like me who at one point lived on an exclusive diet of Dame Christie's novels did see some of the twists coming but overall I really enjoyed the gradual unravelling of the mystery and the solution to the "whodunit". It was also lovely to read about Isolde and Warren's partnership both as professionals and as individuals - their commitment, their support towards each other and the mutual love and respect they shared was heartwarming.

There were a few things which didn't work for me as well. One was the writing felt overtly quirky and a bit too elaborate at times, which disrupted the smooth flow of the narrative. This is probably down to personal preference but for me whimsy is delightful when balanced - here it seemed at times that it was trying too hard. The second thing is there were a lot of magical elements, almost too many for me, and again at times it felt overloaded. I would have liked a more graded worldbuilding approach such as Bancroft accomplished in Senlin Ascends, his debut novel.

Overall this is a thoroughly enjoyable magical mystery novel that I would definitely recommend to readers of The Books of Babel but also to new readers looking for a fun, innovative fantasy read. Josiah Bancroft continues to shine as a novelist who writes like no other in the fantasy genre and I would encourage all interested in fantasy to give his newest creative endeavour a read.

Many thanks to Orbit Books and NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.