Review copy was received from Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
House of Hex by Beth Revis Narrator: Jacci Prior
Series: Museum of Magic #2
Published by Tantor Audio on January 6, 2026
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy Romance
Length: 8 hours, 30 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
Amazon, Audible, Libro.fm
Emmi Castor thought she escaped the dangers of dealing with the fae when she sacrificed her magic to build a new witch bottle, one designed to both protect magical beings and witches like her. She struck a bargain with an ancient fae king to get her grandfather back and hopefully return to normal life, but she forgot…
You can never trust the fae.
Emmi is more than ready to resume life with her grandfather at the Museum of Magic. But nothing is as it seems. Her beloved home twists into a house of secrets, lies, and hexes, and Emmi is now powerless to protect the people she loves.
History hides the truth.
Emmi may not have magic, but she does have her library. And Puck. Learning who—and what—Puck is wasn’t easy, but Emmi has discovered that the truth is more important than any spell or potion. And while she may have lost some powers along the way, there’s one thing she knows with absolute certainty…
Magic is very real.
And it just may save them all.
House of Hex is the conclusion to the Museum of Magic duology that was originally posted online as a choose your own adventure type story. The fans were allowed to vote and help decide which direction the story and characters would take using tarot cards and dice sometimes. Knowing this made the story a bit more fun for me as I saw how some of the author’s choices for the story were developed.
Emmi has her Grandfather back and everything should be able to go back to the way it was before. But you can’t really go back to being the person you were after learning all the things Emmi did in the first book. She can’t decide if things feel off because she has changed or because not everything is really what it seems. Plus, she misses Puck. They had the beginnings of something and she misses the trickster that she can’t seem to find now but is just on the periphery of her dreams. Emmi is smart and has a library full of books on the Fae, Witches and Uncanny. If anyone can figure out what isn’t quite right in her new life and where Puck is, it is Emmi.
I enjoyed this story more than the first in the series. Part of that was knowing the journey this book took being an interactive experience for the fans. The other part is there was not so much traveling and bouncing through portals. There is some but a lot of the story is set with Emmi stuck in the Museum trying to sus out what is really going on and finding away to fix it all. I liked the addition of Bach, the changeling, to the story as he was a really fun character that was great at pointing out when Emmi was going to do something colossally stupid. Their brand of sarcasm added to the comic relief that maybe was missing from the first story.
There was a satisfying conclusion and wrap up to the duology. I liked where everything ended up and the journey to get there. In the first story, all of Emmi’s powers seemed to come too easy to make the new witch bottle. House of Hex made Emmi work for answers a little harder and not all of her magic or answers came easy. If you enjoyed Museum of Magic I think this will work even better for you.
Narration:
Performance: ★★★
Character Separation: ★★★★
Diction: ★★★★
Pacing/Flow: ★★★★
Sound Effects: none
Jacci Prior was a new to me narrator in the first book of the series. I liked her overall voice and she was a good fit for the young ages of the portrayals of Emmi and Puck. I thought some of her grown up characters were less of a fit to her voice but most of them had distinguishable changes to their voices to tell them apart. Overall it was a good performance but not as nuanced as I would have liked. Her performance and cadence was solid. I was able to listen to the story at my usual 1.5x speed.
Listen to a clip: HERE
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“The fans were allowed to vote and help decide which direction the story and characters would take using tarot cards and dice sometimes. Knowing this made the story a bit more fun for me as I saw how some of the author’s choices for the story were developed.” I’m in love with that idea!!!
If you are going to do a serial story I think it is a really fun way to develop some unexpected directions to it. I wish I new that for the first book, I think I would have looked at it differently and probably enjoyed it more.