#max francis

[pagesandpothos]

Honor & Heresy by Max Francis

Official Summary:

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, perfect for fans of Katabasis and A Study in Drowning. 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.

My Thoughts:

This book begins with a letter from the Governor announcing the death of Roy Dawnseve's older brother and assigning Roy to a top-secret assignment to investigate the enemies of their war-obsessed nation. Roy is to travel to the Orphic Basilica, an ancient library, and find out as much as he can about the Old Ones. Roy doesn't have much choice in the matter: it is either this mission or the front lines. Three days later, a horse-drawn sled arrives to take him on the long journey to start his research.

Northgard is a country that despises the scholarly. The Governor had most bookstores, libraries, and books burned years ago. The only reason the Orphic Basilica is still around is that it has somehow resisted all attempts to destroy it. The government also regularly executes academics, especially those who study the old ways. Roy knows his assignment at Orphic Basilica is a punishment. He's the son (and now heir) of an elite family, and his mother is a highly ranked official; he's too privileged to be outright executed for collecting books and reading. Instead, he's sent on this nearly impossible mission to a library that has a habit of driving those who enter insane.

Joining him on this mission is Percival Atherto. Percival is mysterious and handsome, and he's not interested in working with Roy at all. Still, the two are trapped together for the next six months, so they'll have to work out their differences to find answers.

There is a romance that develops between them, but it's not the main focus of the story. Though this is being pitched as Rivals-to-Lovers, their rivals era is extremely short and feels pretty shallow. Regardless, I did really like the relationship! They have some really sweet scenes together, especially in the second half of the book. It's very much a slow-burn, though!

I loved the atmosphere of this. Northgard has been locked in a years-long winter, so descriptions of snow falling, icy windows, and howling winds set a great mood. There are few settings I love more than an old library, and I found the magical (and occasionally hostile) library to be a fun take on the setting. I loved the Gothic elements of the story too; I am always a sucker for a slow-building, creepy, dark story, and this is all of those things.

There are pacing issues, with parts that I think should have either been edited down, developed more, or cut completely. I also really wanted more depth from all the characters.

This book will not work for everyone, but I did enjoy it. The vibes are great, and I genuinely enjoyed watching the mystery unfurl. I recommend it most to Gothic and Dark Academia fans, especially readers who don't mind an unhurried plot with lots of philosophical debates. It's an interesting meld of many genres, and while I don't think it fully succeeded in everything it set out to do, there was enough to keep me reading.

My Rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 (3.5/5 stars)

Pages: 410 (ARC Edition)

Tropes/Tags: Queer, Achillean, Dark Academia, High Fantasy, Gothic, Romance, Horror

Contains Depictions Of: Violence, War, Gore, Authoritarian Government, Toxic/Abusive Family, Mentions/Thoughts of Suicide, and Deaths. You can see a full list on the author's Instagram!

Links: Storygraph | GoodReads | Pagebound 

Honor & Heresy will be released on April 21, 2026, and is available for pre-order!

I received an advanced copy of this book for free, thanks to Netgalley, Harper Voyager, and Harper Collins. The above are my honest feelings about the provided book.

[ See Everything I’ve Read in 2026 ]

[bookshelvesandtealeaves]

✨ BOOK REVIEW ✨

Honour & Heresy by Max Francis

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

QOTD: What’s the last academia book you read?

[instagram]

Thank you to Harper Voyager Aus and Netgalley for the eARC. I ended up buying myself a special edition of this one! All thoughts are entirely my own.

This was such a fantastic, dark, moody book. I was enraptured from the start, the gorgeous prose and bleak setting immediately drawing me in.

I really loved Roy as a main character. He’s damaged and terrified and intelligent and so much stronger than he thinks. I loved being inside his mind, seeing the way he approached things, the way the cogs turned as he pieced more and more of the puzzle together.

And I absolutely loved Percival, despite hating him to start with. He’s just as damaged as Roy, his defence mechanisms are just different. I loved the way they came together, heated and hateful and distrusting at first, before they became the only thing each other could trust. The way their relationship developed was truly lovely.

The plot overall was very slow moving, but I didn’t mind as I was kept engaged and eager for more constantly. The magic, the ghosts and all the history culminating in that explosive ending was all fascinating and truly well crafted.

An incredible debut and an author I will definitely keeping an eye on.

[gealach-in-a-misty-world]

Review: Honor and Heresy, by Max Francis

  Roy Dawnseve cares more for philosophy than battle. But, in a society that shuns literature in favour of their ongoing war, Roy must face

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.

​“​Better it be my nightmare than a whole country's.”

Max Francis' Honor and Heresy is an achillean dark academia novel set in a fantasy world where scholars are put to death. The intriguing premise doesn't live up to its promise, and we're put in a claustrophobic setting, an enormous library, where our two main characters have to do research about a nebulous threat. The novel is mostly about the research, and while the snippets we get of this world's body of work are tantalising, the focus narrows down to the narrator's trauma.

There wasn't a good balance between plot, worldbuilding, and the character's inner life, and what we get is a strange concoction whose abrupt and truncated ending makes no sense at all and falls absolutely flat. Which is a shame, because the bare bones of the novel are really good. 

Honor and Heresy is a missed opportunity.

✨ 3.5 stars

[biblionerdreflections]

Honor & Heresy - DNF Thoughts

Hello, everyone! Today I’m discussing my thoughts on my most recent DNF, Honor & Heresy by Max Francis. I don’t always discuss my DNFs, but this book was such a huge disappointment for me. So, I need to rant a bit to get over the grief I hold for what this book could’ve been. Continue reading Honor & Heresy – DNF Thoughts

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[wearethekat]

November Book Reviews: Honor & Heresy by Max Francis

I received a free copy from Harper Voyager via Netgalley in exchange for a fair review. Release date April 21st, 2026.

I thought this book's haunted scholarship and queer romance premise sounded interesting, so I gave it a shot. In Honor & Heresy, young Roy lives in a world where scholarship is illegal and punishable by death. Caught out by the ruling governor, he's sent to his city's ancient library with one task: discover the secret of the armies that invade Northgard, or die.

I've consistently had a bad time with books where the first line of the cover copy describes it as a "Tiktok sensation", but I decided to give this Instagram sensation a shot. Unfortunately, my first instinct was correct. The book is written in an attempt at a formal style that obviously isn't quite fluent. Each descriptive word is ever so slightly wrong and the overall effect grates horribly. In addition, the text is also impressively overwritten. Why have one mediocre sentence when you can have ten instead. Stuff some more unnecessary adjectives in there, and why don't we stop the plot dead for three pages for a little light description. I don't say this lightly, but I found the prose almost entirely unreadable. I haven't had such a bad experience since When the Moon Hatched, and I dnf'd that one with extreme prejudice after about ten pages.

The actual characters are cardboard-flat stereotypes: the sweet sister, the cruel older brother, the scheming ruler, and so forth. The one exception is Roy and his love interest Percival, who are each allotted one trauma apiece. Their romance is propelled Percival's instant, groundless hostility rather than by any real chemistry. In one of Percival's first on-page appearances, Roy startles him by entering a room, and he knocks over his own ink bottle. Percival screams that Roy is an imbecile, and then grabs and threatens Roy when he apologizes and attempts to mop up the ink. Highly unpleasant, and also pointless in a world where there's not even any tenure to fight over. In a book where the romance is a central element, ugly squabbling is a poor substitute for attraction.

I found the other central element, the dark academia, to be equally underwritten. For a book that's supposedly focused on research and scholarship, I don't think Francis has the faintest clue what higher-level historical research looks like. In Honor & Heresy, the work of a historian is depicted as consuming books in a series of Instagram-pretty montages. To be fair, both Percival and Roy are entirely self-taught, but what about writing, let alone primary sources...? In addition, the central premise of a world where books are banned and historians are executed was straight out of the ill-advised YA dystopia trend of 2010. It may be possible to pull this premise off with dignity, but not with such vague and politically naive worldbuilding. Give me a nice bureau of government propagandist historians or something, rather than climactic speeches where Roy declares that historians are an oppressed people.

Clunky prose, poorly written characters, and barely defined worldbuilding. We might have parted on better terms had I been able to dnf at about page 20, but alas, the commitments of an advanced copy. Not recommended.