**'**a formidable, timeless work, destined to be a modern classic' OLIVIE BLAKE

'A novel to savour. This book is an experience. I envy those who get to read it for the first time' REBECCA ROSS

'A witty, gory, harrowing ride' LEIGH BARDUGO

**'**Literary super-stardom doesn't seem too far out of her reach now' THE HERALD

‘Mind-bending fantasy’ GRAZIA

Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek. The story of a hero's descent to the underworld.

Grad student Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become the brightest mind in the field of analytic magick.

But the only person who can make her dream come true is dead and – inconveniently – in Hell. And Alice, along with her biggest rival Peter Murdoch, is going after him.

But Hell is not as the philosophers claim, its rules are upside-down, and if she’s going to get out of there alive, she and Peter will have to work together.

That’s if they can agree on anything.

Will they triumph, or kill each other trying?

2025’s most unexpected love story is going to be hell in the new novel by Sunday Times Number One Bestseller R.F. Kuang. Coming August 2025.