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The Magician King
The Magician King
Dec 2, 2025 5:34 PM

Author:Lev Grossman

The Magician King

Quentin and his friends are now the kings and queens of the magical land of Fillory. But he finds himself growing restless.

So when a mystery at the heart of the kingdom is uncovered, Quentin and his old friend Julia charter a sailing ship and set off to the wild outer reaches.

But their voyage will take them much further than they imagined and leave them with a choice that could have devastating consequences - for Fillory and for magic itself.

Praise for The Magicians Trilogy

'The best fantasy trilogy of the decade.' Charles Stross

'The most entertaining and compelling fantasy I've read in a long time.' The Times

'Lev Grossman has conjured a rare creature: a trilogy that simply gets better and better as it goes along... Literary perfection.' Erin Morgenstern

'May just be the most subversive, gripping, and enchanting fantasy novel I've read this century.' Cory Doctorow

'Dark and dangerous and full of twists. Hogwarts was never like this.' George R. R. Martin

'Sad, hilarious, beautiful, and essential to anyone who cares about modern fantasy.' Joe Hill

'A darkly cunning story about the power of imagination itself.' The New Yorker

'The Magicians ought to be required reading... a terrific, at times almost painfully perceptive novel of the fantastic.' Kelly Link

'Brilliantly explores the hidden underbelly of fantasy and easy magic, taking what's simple on the surface and turning it over to show us the complicated writhing mess beneath.' Naomi Novik

Reviews

The best fantasy trilogy of the decade.

—— Charles Stross

Lev Grossman has conjured a rare creature: a trilogy that simply gets better and better as it goes along... Literary perfection.

—— Erin Morgenstern , author of The Night Circus

Lev Grossman's novel is full of magic ... stupendous urban fantasy ... The Magician King is Harry Potter for grown-ups who have learned to hate Harry Potter

—— The Guardian

The most entertaining and compelling fantasy I've read in a long time.

—— The Times

A story about extraordinary deeds, heroism, magic and love -- all the stuff that makes escapism go. It's a fantastic trick that makes this into a book that entertains and disturbs at the same time

—— Cory Doctorow , Boing Boing

Fabulous fantasy spiked with bitter adult wisdom-not to be missed.

—— Kirkus

An excellent follow-up to a brilliant first installment.

—— Civilian Reader

Grossman's trademark eloquent-yet-hip writing style flourishes in this sequel, a creative and entertaining novel well worth the wait

—— Greg Bruce , Boswell Book Company

A superior historical thriller

—— Fiona Wilson , The Times, Books of the Year

Harris’ version of Cicero is a tremendous creation

—— Independent

[Dictator's] gripping dramas and powerful themes - the fragility of democracy and the fallibility of human beings among them - richly illuminate the conflicts of its era and our own

—— Publishers Weekly

Superb…confirms Harris’s undisputed place as our leading master of both the historical and contemporary thriller

—— Daily Mail

Harris is a masterful storyteller. I’m currently experiencing that terrible phase of cold turkey after finishing something superb

—— Alastair Moffat , Herald

Contemporary echoes abound in this endlessly fascinating exploration of power struggles

—— Craig Brown , Mail on Sunday, Books of the Year

Triumphant

—— Sunday Times

A masterful story of political intrigue…a fascinating and absorbing novel

—— Financial Times

Robert Harris is an incomparable storyteller... It's a brutal tale of murder and mayhem and a tour de force of research and imagination...

—— The Express

I’m a big fan of Robert Harris so I’d like to read his latest, Dictator… Robert is very good at politics and evoking a period

—— Melvyn Bragg , Good Housekeeping, Books of the Year

Sinuous, clever and compelling…A fitting end to a magnificent trilogy

—— Metro

A riveting read

—— Sunday Express

Robert Harris brings his Cicero trilogy to a triumphant, compelling and deeply moving conclusion…The three novels are surely the finest fictional treatment of Ancient Rome in the English language…distinguished by a mastery of the sources, sympathetic imagination, political intelligence and narrative skill

—— Yorkshire Post

Harris’ Cicero is a bit special – a mix of genius and craft, kindness and pomposity, ambition and principle

—— Daily Mail (Scotland)

Penetrating and utterly compelling

—— Claire Allfree , Metro, Books of the Year

In Dictator, Robert Harris brings his trilogy on Cicero to a triumphant end. As one who has himself written novels set in the last years of the Roman republic and the first century of empire, I am happy to say that Harris reigns supreme. His Cicero is magnificent; couldn’t conceivably be done better

—— Alan Massie , Spectator, Books of the Year

The characters are compelling and vividly drawn, the dialogue is profane and frequently hilarious; the prose drips like honey off a spoon.

—— SUNDAY TIMES

A jewel of a novel that will surely become a classic... enthralling and unmissable

—— DAILY EXPRESS, 'Fiction Highlights of 2022'

A celebration of love and loyalty among women.

—— IRISH INDEPENDENT

Big-hearted, generous and brimful of emotion, this a gorgeous, life-enhancing read

—— IRISH MAIL ON SUNDAY

It is a beaut. It's a celebration of women and of womanhood. I see my mother in this, I see my sister ... This book is a joy.

—— RYAN TUBRIDY

If language - lyric, lovely and funny, steeped in County Tipperary - and women (men come and go, rarely center a chapter and are often useless, sometimes cruel) are of no interest to you, The Queen of Dirt Island is not your next read. Ryan's book is a celebration, in an embroidered, unrestrained, joyful, aphoristic and sometimes profane style, of both ... The Queen of Dirt Island gives the women their due, and the reader is rewarded.

—— NEW YORK TIMES

Donal Ryan's The Queen of Dirt Island is a little Irish miracle ... there's as much implicit wisdom in these pages about how to live as how to write ... Ryan has his own emotional range and a way of capturing the largeness of what look like tiny lives but aren't

—— WASHINGTON POST

Frank, funny and emotional

—— Marie Claire

A fascinatingly realistic look into the world of elite sports where driven and flawed characters' private lives are just as intriguing and controversial as they are on the court

—— Business Post

This is a well-researched, exciting and genuinely tender book

—— RTÉ

McEwan is on top form… Social satire that wears its learning lightly

—— Lady, Book of the Year

[A] brilliant novel… A tour de force in language and literary intrigue.

—— Brad Davies , i, Book of the Year

A book pulsing with hilarious and brainy brio… He simultaneously spoofs crime fiction and finds a novel mouthpiece for a mordantly entertaining and exhilaratingly intelligent commentary on the modern world.

—— Peter Kemp , Sunday Times, Book of the Year

A comic tale… It is a masterpiece.

—— Fiona Wilson , The Times, Book of the Year

[A] wonderful new novel.

—— Catherine Nixey , The Times

By turns, funny, shocking and compelling. But the writing is so clever and beautiful. I could read it again and again.

—— Nick Clegg , Mail on Sunday

The voice of its narrator, a foetus, is splendidly sardonic.

—— Quentin Letts , Daily Mail, Book of the Year

Not only does he pull it off, he does so triumphantly, in the cleverest book I’ve read this year. It’s smart, dark and at times very funny.

—— Jonathan Pugh , Daily Mail, Book of the Year

A saucy, claustrophobic and darkly funny story which is all rather peculiar. Compulsive reading.

—— Henry Deedes , Daily Mail, Book of the Year

I devoured Ian McEwan’s latest very funny spin on Hamlet.

—— Sarah Crossan , Irish Times, Book of the Year

An ingenious rewrite of Hamlet as a murder story in which a foetus is detective and possible victim.

—— Mark Lawson , Guardian, Book of the Year

This is McEwan at his most playfully provocative.

—— Irish Independent, Book of the Year

A clever conceit, elegantly wrought, economically constructed.

—— Tablet, Book of the Year

A bewitching ode to humanity’s beauty, longing and selfishness.

—— Irish Mail on Sunday, Book of the Year

A gripping piece of fiction.

—— Accounting Web UK, Book of the Year

I was hooked from the first page.

—— David Murphy , Irish Independent, Book of the Year

[A] smart, eloquent novel.

—— World of Cruising, Book of the Year

A enthralling read from one of the world’s master storytellers.

—— Helen Brown , Absolutely London

McEwan delights with lyrical prose that is fittingly poetic.

—— Ed Butterfield , The Boar

[A] work which both fascinates and disturbs through its unique perspective on a malicious death… Every sentence is a joy to behold, a gift to the reader of delicately considered prose, and thoughtful observations… Alongside its edgy and entertaining narration, and perhaps in part because of it, the novel manages to challenge all preconceptions of the crime genre, upending the whodunit into an extraordinary will-they-do-it… By nature, Nutshell is a novel which perplexes, entertains, and moves the reader in equal turn, all with McEwan’s startling attention to detail, and luxuriant prose style. Read it for its peculiar narrator, read it for the rapidly-changing and intense emotions, or read it just for the thrill of chase as the killing comes to fruition; whatever intrigues you about this novel, just make sure that you do read it – and feel the thrill for yourself.

—— Eli Holden , Oxford Student

Brilliantly realised… Any book so bound up in a conceit and in its own verbal fireworks at times runs the risk of being a bit clever-clever. But on the whole we accept in a suspension of disbelief the foetus’s pompous mastery of language and imagery and abandon ourselves to the sheer eloquent pleasure of this hilarious romp.

—— Liza Cox , Totally Dublin

Short, odd but pleasurable… Great fun, and very well written.

—— i

Rich in Shakespearean allusion, this is McEwan on dazzling form.

—— Mail on Sunday

Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a classic tale of murder and deceit from one of the world’s master storytellers.

—— Silversurfers

Ian McEwan’s brilliance as a stylist and surprise plotter finds a fitting subject in Nutshell…, which is Hamlet as told from inside the womb. Up there with his best.

—— Melvyn Bragg , New Statesman

A gripping tale is told with breathtaking skill, turbocharged with rage against the madness and despair of our modern world.

—— Guto Harri , The Tablet

Nutshell is one of those books you sit down to read and don’t get up until you’ve finished. It is brilliantly executed and full of surprises; original, clever and witty. Simply a must-read

—— Kalwant Bhopal , Times Higher Education

A book I couldn’t put down… brilliantly clever

—— Nadav Kander , Observer
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