The Hexologists
#6513.84 adjusted 3.85 for sample size in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 2 books Status Ongoing 2023–present Reading commitment Low Josiah Bancroft Last reviewed 2026-08-25
Overview
The Hexologists is a two-book gaslamp-fantasy series by Josiah Bancroft, comprising The Hexologists (2023) and The Hexologists: A Tangle of Time (2024). Isolette Hexology and her husband Warren run a small practice solving magical mysteries that ordinary detectives cannot touch, in a candlelit city full of strange technologies, stranger crimes, and the everyday bureaucracy of magic gone slightly wrong. Compared to Bancroft's earlier Books of Babel series, this duology adopts a lighter, more domestic register, built around a warm central marriage rather than a solitary quest, with inventive, puzzle-box mysteries driving each book's plot rather than large-scale war or conquest. The series marks a deliberate tonal shift for Bancroft toward whimsical, cozier fantasy while retaining his characteristic attention to strange, richly imagined worldbuilding detail, and was well received by readers of his earlier work for successfully carrying his prose style into a smaller-scale, more comic register.
Cozy fantasy, Comic fantasy · For Adult
Core Canon: Reading Order (2 works) counts toward ranking
The Hexologists Josiah Bancroft
| Work | Year | Internal chron. | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | The Hexologists | 2023 | 1 | core | 3.78 (7,993 ratings) |
 | The Hexologists: A Tangle of Time | 2024 | 2 | core | 4.15 (1,441 ratings) |
Ongoing case-file sequence; further volumes expected.
Quick answers
- How many books are in The Hexologists? The Hexologists's Core Canon is 2 books.
- What is the reading order for The Hexologists? Publication order, starting with The Hexologists. Full list and years in the Core Canon table above.
- Is The Hexologists finished? Ongoing (2023–present).
- How much reading does The Hexologists take? Low reading commitment (estimated from 2 Core Canon books).
- How is The Hexologists ranked? #651 in this site's official ranking, based on 9,434 reader ratings across 2 Core Canon books. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #651?
Ranked #651 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 3.84 across 2 core books.
- A smaller readership (9,434 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- Less than 0.01 behind #650, The Butcher of the Forest (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
Why explore this universe?
Rated · 2 books · Ongoing · 9k ratings · Ranks #651 overall
Good choice if you want a quick, low-commitment cozy fantasy universe that's still ongoing, with new books still coming.
Reading order
Publication order (2 Core Canon books)
- The Hexologists (2023)
- The Hexologists: A Tangle of Time (2024)
Documented internal/story chronology is recorded for every Core Canon book here, and matches publication order exactly, with no divergence to show separately.
Awards (verified)
- No awards found for this universe.
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Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.84 across 9,434 ratings on 2 Core Canon books. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: Admit The Hexologists (Josiah Bancroft) accepted 2026-08-25
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
Last reviewed: 2026-08-26
Rule: Core Canon covers both published novels of this ongoing sequence, The Hexologists (2023) and The Hexologists: A Tangle of Time (2024). Further volumes are expected.