The Hexologists (The Hexologists, #1)

by Josiah Bancroft

Only the sort of vacuous cretin who went around asking people if their names were made-up could possibly enjoy the lumbering comedy that was the godless pun.

“No one has any compunction about shouting their heads off at the racetrack, and they’re not even the ones in the saddle.”

“The Sepulchral Spade was originally a gift from a necromancer to his wife, an ardent gardener who was also ardently dead. This was centuries ago, so the details are a bit garbled, but the necromancer intended for his wife to use the trowel to create a secret garden in that liminal space between life and death where they could meet and canoodle. What she actually did was repeatedly stab her husband with it, thereby solving the whole problem of commuting back and forth between here and the hereafter.” Warren lifted his shoulders as if fending off a shiver. “Well, you can’t spell ‘necromance’ without ‘romance,’ I suppose.”