Here’s an exclusive first look at the cover of KAKISTOCRACY, Book Two of the Conradverse Chronicles by Alex Shvartsman, which will be published on September 19, 2023 in print, ebook, and audiobook formats. It is the sequel to The Middling Affliction, published in 2022.

Cover art for both books has been created by Tulio Brito.

Here’s the publisher’s back-of-the-cover blurb:

If you do it well, lying is every bit as effective as magic.

Conrad Brent has no innate magic, so he bluffs a lot and uses a myriad of magical items to protect Brooklyn from monsters and arcane threats. As a member of the Watch, the group that protects the mundane humans from such dangers, he risks his life on a regular basis. Sometimes twice before lunch. Sometimes during lunch, when he dares order his food from a street cart.

After regaining his position in the Watch which he’d temporarily lost due to the machinations of a variety of evil-doers, Conrad doesn’t want to take any risks he doesn’t have to. But now his boss is missing, there’s a totalitarian new regime in City Hall oppressing all magic users, and the mayor has aligned himself with a diabolical villain.

In order to save the day, Conrad must team up with a recovering necromancer to mediate a dispute between two ancient enemy factions, solve a mystery of a warded house adjacent to a cemetery, and stand with his friends against tyranny.

That is, if the interdimensional fae assassins don’t get him first.

You can preorder Kakistocracy at your local bookstore, or via the following links:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Bookshop.org