Thank you to NetGalley and to Orbit Books for the ARC of The Hexologists: A Tangle of Time by Josiah Bancroft.

The first book in this series, The Hexologists, was published in 2023 and was one of my top books of the year -- I was beyond excited to receive an ARC of the sequel. For new readers, I do recommend reading The Hexologists before reading the sequel to best understand the worldbuilding and the character relationships.

Bancroft has made something really special with this series. The Hexologists is an endlessly creative and humorous steampunk urban fantasy. I think it would appeal to fans of Heather Fawcett's Emily Wilde (but steampunk!), or Robert Jackson Bennett's The Tainted Cup (with more romance),

This book diverged from where I thought he was headed in the first book, which my previous review thought was aimed at threats to the future of the monarchy. Instead, Bancroft takes us back to Iz and Warren, still happily in love and spending their time solving hex crimes and cooking for a dragon. Iz has a bad feeling about a woman she halfheartedly responded to about hexes in artwork, and she and Warren go to check on her only to find her murdered. From here, the mystery blossoms in multiple different directions. Similar to the first book we are entertained and chased through a variety of dangers that further Bancroft's exemplary worldbuilding and enrich both Iz and Warren's incredibly solid and beautiful marriage, while also asking questions about what they really know about the magical system that exists in their world, what might Iz's father have known before his disappearance, and more. The mystery of the murdered artist is centered in the plot, but a lot happens around it that digs into the world itself.

Bancroft's language once again makes this a laugh-out-loud adventure that allows Iz and Warren's missteps to be both anxiety inducing and funny. I truly do not think there is another author out there with his wit and turns of phrase - they elevate every sentence of this series.

There are two reasons I removed a star, and I will be a bit vague on them to hopefully avoid spoilers: 1) The murderer feels too easy to identify. This was similar to the first book as well. I am mostly forgiving toward it because, now that I have two books to compare, the murder, while central to the plot, tends not to be the plot. Bancroft writes so the plot is everything around the murder. It's more about what he is building then what is in front of our face. 2) The book is "A Tangle of Time" which will mean time travel. I greatly struggle with books about time travel because they always leave too many paradoxes and plot holes. Bancroft tries to fill that issue by making time jumps erase time -- so, more like waking up on Groundhog's Day to a new world but not remembering anything previously and starting over with the same goal from the previous day unaware of any changes. This works for the majority of the story except for the end, because it means we have learned so much more than Iz and Warren about everything because time jumps have erased our story from their minds. When I finished I was really frustrated by this because, while I think Bancroft does an amazing job of setting us up for the third book which will hopefully solve a reoccurring and ever important mystery from the first two books, it means so much of this second book was just filler because Iz and Warren cannot carry over memories of something that never occurred to another book. It feels like a huge, unnecessary loss, but also like we were just whiling away the time that could have led the third book to be the second if the second doesn't actually matter once separated from the tangle of time. But, before I contradict myself, I did say in my first point that Bancroft writes so that it's about what he is building rather than what is in front of our face, so I have high hopes he's going to make it all worth it in the next book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Josiah Bancroft, and Orbit Books for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

4.75 stars

I have been anticipating this book since I read The Hexologists at the beginning of 2024. I feel incredibly blessed to have been selected to read the e-arc before publication. I was planning on waiting to read it 1 to 2 months before release, but I could not wait. I adore the main characters, Iz and Warren Wilby. I love the fact that Iz is a strong-willed and rational FMC. She goes after the truth no matter the dangers, which makes some of her choices reckless. I'm curious to see what will come from some of her questionable choices in book 3. I found the case in this one even more intriguing than The Hexologists. There were a few reasons I didn't give it a full 5 stars. The first was that the banter between Iz and Warren was dimmed, and the second was that it didn't have the same cozy feeling as The Hexologists. A Tangle of Time dealt with more topics related to current social issues. I enjoyed those aspects, but I do think it made the book more serious than The Hexologists. Overall, I adored this book. I would highly recommend this series. I can't wait to read book 3! I want to know what Iz is going to get herself into next.