In the city of Puck's Port, an industrial capital on the rise, the Maxim & Maxim private detective duo represent the new face of justice... that is, until the younger is seduced by a radical fey, and dies in a horrific blast. No one can decide if it was a tragic accident, or an intentional political massacre. Either way, their children are the only survivors, and are taken in by their aunt who is determined to ensure that disaster never strikes again.

 

At eighteen, mortal Gristle Senan Maxim Junior minds the administrative Maxim & Maxim office and aids his aunt's political campaign for fey education and awareness, while his fey step-sister Hathorne Stregoni attempts to control her condition at the only fey school in the country. But when a body is found on the docks, and all signs point for a fey murderer, Gristle and Hawthorne are forced into a tangled web of blackmail and lies that threaten to destroy everything their aunt has been building. With both the help and hindrance of the powerful jazz club owner, and while Hawthorne tries to juggle her maturing romance with her childhood love, Gristle and Hawthorne must come to terms with everything that killed their parents, and threatens to force them apart even now.

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Author of forthcoming queer YA horror Lockjaw (June 4, 2024), Matteo L. Cerilli’s sophomore YA novel Bad in the Blood is a fantasy noir in which eighteen-year-old orphaned twins—one mortal and one fey—investigate magical killings in order to protect a dangerous family secret, clear their infamous names, and blaze a new path to equality for all, amidst political intrigue in a crooked city, edited by Peter Phillips at Penguin Random House/Tundra Book Group, for publication in Fall 2025.