Somewhere beyond the last ordinary street—and perhaps just behind the nearest shadow—lies Hexton, a town where magic crackles in the air, old grudges have roots as deep as trees, and a family name can be more dangerous than any spell.
Amy Wilson’s The Trouble with Magic: The Hexton Chronicles is a wonderfully atmospheric beginning to a dark new fantasy series. At its heart is Fray Mantel, a boy who has spent his life trying to smother the strange power stirring inside him. But when a formidable family heirloom awakens and amplifies his magic, Fray is drawn out of hiding and forced towards Hexton—the very place from which his family was banished after a terrible betrayal.
Hexton is a deliciously shadowy creation: part secret sanctuary, part haunted inheritance, and part ticking magical timepiece. Wilson fills it with menace, mystery, and the tantalising sense that every doorway may open onto an old secret. Her prose has a rich, spellbinding quality, conjuring a world where magic is not simply a gift, but a dangerous seed that may grow into something magnificent—or something monstrous.
Fray makes an immediately compelling hero. He is frightened of his powers, suspicious of those who claim to understand him, and burdened by the sins of people who came before him. As he struggles to decide whether he is destined to repeat his family’s mistakes or break free from them, the story asks an enchanting question: are we shaped by our inheritance, or can we choose what we become?
Adding to the book’s gothic charm are Eric Deschamps’s evocative black-and-white illustrations, which lend the story a wonderfully old-fashioned, storybook darkness. Their shadowy detail and eerie atmosphere feel perfectly at home beside Wilson’s magical world, offering glimpses of Hexton’s secrets without giving them all away.
With its cursed legacy, forbidden power and beautifully brooding setting, *The Trouble with Magic* is an inviting first step into a series that promises danger behind every curtain and wonder beneath every stone. Hexton awaits—and readers may find it very difficult to leave.
**Title:** *The Trouble with Magic: The Hexton Chronicles*
- **Author:** Amy Wilson- **Illustrations:** Eric Deschamps, Black and White- **Publisher:** Nosy Crow- **Publication Date:** 10 September 2026- **Format:** Paperback **ISBN:** 9781805135647- **Price:** £7.99
