Honor & Heresy 

• Author: Max Francis
• Genre: Fantasy
• Publication Date: April 21, 2026
• Publisher: Harper Voyager

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Instagram sensation Max Francis makes his highly anticipated debut with this atmospheric, gothic, dark academic fantasy of two scholars racing each other to find answers to an invasion in a haunted library.

Roy Dawnseve cares more for philosophy than battle. But, in a society that shuns literature in favour of their ongoing war, Roy must face a difficult choice: brave the front lines or investigate the identity of their foes in the Orphic Basilica, an ancient, abandoned library.

When Roy chooses to unravel the mystery, it soon becomes clear that the Orphic Basilica isn’t without its own horrors. Strange voices echo down the halls, ghosts roam the bookshelves, and those who stepped foot in the library have either emerged insane or were driven to their own demise.

Roy’s partner in the investigation is Percival Atherton, a manipulative, enigmatic and distractingly charming scholar who has no qualms about belittling Roy. As a fierce snowstorm isolates them from civilisation, Roy and Percival must grapple with their tormented pasts, an unexpected romance, and an age-old conspiracy whose secrets are certain to wipe Northgard from history.

Filled with all the yearning of a rivals-to-lovers romance, the intrigue and fear of a dark academia, and the wonder and discovery of an epic fantasy, Honour & Heresy is ultimately a story of self-discovery amidst the chaos of war and a long, cold winter.

This one had all the elements that I love to see in dark academia fantasy novels. So I was obviously prepared to love this book. It’s dark academia, mystery, fantasy twined with a slow-burn queer romance, and dips a toe into horror, and I always seem drawn to these hard-to-classify genre mashups. Diving into this, I was ready to enjoy the ride.

There were a lot of things that I enjoyed about the story, and some things I didn’t love, but the description really did justice to this story. It was a fantastic example of a gothic novel, and honestly was a mashup of all the genres listed above. And the things that were good were done really well. Let me get into those.

First of all, this book is what dark academia is meant to be: an honest exploration of academia, with Roy and Percival actually doing research, discussing philosophy, and working their way through a haunted, abandoned, indestructible library to find a solution to who the Old Ones are so they can be defeated, since they’re currently ravaging Northgard. But they find so much more. This is a book drenched in dark academia, rather than simply the aesthetic of just vibes that I’ve seen far too often in recent years.

As for the Orphic Basilica, it was an immersive, beautifully rendered, gothic setting. It seems to almost be a character in the story, much like the Scholomance is in A Deadly Education by Naomi Novak. The library continues to stand in a land where scholars are killed and society relies on their soldiers and places no value on scholarship. It reads like a nearly sentient character, guiding the progress of the two scholars toward what it wants them to learn, rather than just passively providing access to a huge amount of books seeking an answer to what they’ve been sent there for. 

Another aspect of the book that was done well was the dynamic between Roy and Percival. Both of them have some heavy issues from their past, including abuse, grief,  and trauma, and they’re vulnerable in different ways. They cope with their issues differently, but have a well-written rivals to lovers, forced proximity, queer romance. I found it easy to empathize with Roy, but felt that Percival was a real jerk for much of the beginning of the book. However, his prickly exterior is just a cover for a soft underbelly. And when the rivalry transitioned into romance, it happened slowly enough to be believable and natural. I was definitely rooting for these two.

However, I quickly found an issue with the first third of the book or so. The world building is extensive in this book, and it came across as very dense. I had a lot of trouble conceptualizing what I was reading, and it was difficult to put all the info together. In addition, it was a fairly slow-paced read, with so much of the story taking place within Roy’s head. 

In addition to hard-to-understand world-building, I had a hard time understanding the things that both Roy and Percival say and do, because for two men who are considered brilliant scholars, they make some really dumb decisions. I know that being intelligent doesn’t always translate to making smart moves all the time, but they really seemed illogical at certain points, and it didn’t come across like they were any smarter than anyone else could be. 

Overall, this wasn’t a bad read but there were some aspects of the book that didn’t work for me. While I loved the atmospheric, gothic, sentient, haunted library, the world building was hard to follow, and the plot moved slowly. I enjoyed aspects of this, but found parts of the story to be slow-moving, while others flat out lagged, and the overly complex world building made it hard to follow. I did find that I liked Roy early on, while it took longer for Percival to grow on me, and I truly appreciated the way that the academia part of dark academia was depicted in the book. While there were a lot of things I did like about this debut novel, there were some other issues that led to my rating. One thing that did stand out is that it is a queer-centric world, where most of the characters were or are involved with a same-sex partner, and I love when an author can really use their creativity to build a world they would want to visit.

Bottom line: An interesting debut novel with a rivals-to-lovers, forced proximity, slow-burn queer romance, even if it moves a bit slowly for my liking and had really heavily detailed world building.

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