Exclusive Cover Reveal + Excerpt: Victoria S. Walsh’s Debut Romantasy, The Iron Hex
Romantasy is still the hottest thing going in the world of publishing right now, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that everyone is eager to dip their toe into this genre with its swoony love stories and strong heroines. The latest to step into the proverbial arena is Victoria S. Walsh, a creator best known for her popular fashion, fantasy, and self-love content, whose debut, The Iron Hex, is slated to hit shelves next summer.
Described as Ark of the Everflame meets Legends and Lattes, this first installment in a new trilogy follows the story of a curvy potions witch who can’t remember her past and is swept along on a mission to find a lost princess by a rogue knight. A handsome rogue knight who happens to know secrets about her that even she doesn’t remember. What follows is a tale of secret identities, fractured memories, forbidden magic, and an empire that must be stopped. (There’s also an adorable rabbit, for those of you who care about such things.
Here’s how the publisher describes the story.
Eira Eckhart has spent years building a quiet life in a small town at the edge of a recently overthrown kingdom. Her memory is fractured, her past a blur—but with her shop, her loyal rabbit familiar, and practicing only the potions magic still legal under the watchful eye of the Iron Empire, she’s managed to remain unnoticed by the empire’s witch hunters.
Until Hugo Venton walks through her door.
Brash, clever, and infuriatingly handsome, Hugo is searching for something…and seems to know more about Eira than she knows about herself. But when a terrifying encounter with an unnatural, deadly new breed of soldier puts a price on her head, she has no choice but to join Hugo on his quest.
Their hunt for a missing princess pulls Eira across the continent—and deeper into a past she can’t recall. As buried memories, mysteries in the Iron Empire’s capital, forgotten feelings, and the truth behind her identity begin to surface, Eira realizes the forbidden magic simmering in her veins might be the very thing that could save them from the Iron Empire’s forces as they draw ever closer…if she can remember how to control it in time.
She doesn’t remember her past. But some memories will come with a cost.
The Iron Hex won’t hit shelves until August of 2026, but we’ve got an exclusive look at its (gorgeous) cover right now — along with a sneak peek at the story itself.
[ad]
Prologue
Six of Astra’s finest knights stood in solemn formation around the table in the dimly lit throne room. Flickering candles tossed heaving shadows against the stone walls as the knights waited to hear why they had been summoned on this brisk autumn evening.
Lord General Kerrigan, resplendent from his shining armor to his silvered hair, paced back and forth, his brow furrowed.
“Each of you have been chosen because you are the best knights in the Iron Retinue—and the most trusted,” Lord General Kerrigan spoke, his deep voice booming in the quiet of the late night.
“I know there have been murmurs of promotions for knights within the Iron Retinue as of late. Those who have been selected have already begun their new role. They will be given the same as you, and your results will determine who among you is most capable of a promotion such as theirs.”
A palpable ripple of eagerness swept through the group, a silent tremor that passed from knight to knight. Failure in their duties could spell ruin, but success could mean the coveted opportunity to grow within the Iron Retinue’s ranks.
“Commander Hugo Venton has abandoned his post and stolen documents vital to the safety and security of the Iron Empire—he must be apprehended and executed.”
The Lord General did not ask if they would accept this mission. He knew each knight in the room would follow him without pause or consideration. In response, the six soldiers placed their hands on the Iron Empire’s sigil on their plate armor.
“Use whatever means and force necessary…and execute anyone who has assisted in concealing Venton or aiding him on his journey to destroy our glorious empire. May the iron in your blood strengthen the iron in your sword.”
“May the iron in your blood strengthen the iron in your sword,” the six echoed before turning sharply and leaving the room.
Chapter One: Eira
Eira Eckhart stood at the threshold of The Potions Patisserie on a crisp autumn morning, her skirts brushing the ground as she fumbled through her keys, trying to find the right fit for the front door. One would think that three years into running her shop that she’d know the difference between her house keys and her shop keys, but that had never been something she’d bothered committing to memory. For a brief moment each morning she worried her memory loss from that fateful fall three years ago had caused everlasting damage, until she remembered that she was just bad at figuring out which keys worked in each door. And so, every morning, she tried each key before finally sliding the right one into the lock and letting the door swing open.
A chill instantly crept up Eira’s spine as Pennyroyal, Eira’s beige and brown speckled rabbit, hopped into the store before she could. A heavy, unsettling silence hung in the air, as if something unseen in the room was quietly pulsing with a dark, oppressive energy. Something wasn’t right. A witch’s practice space was sacred, and the shop always had a certain feeling to Eira.
The energy in the room was different this morning, and it made her feel a little bit sick. She roamed the space slowly, turning the corner into her workspace and making sure that no one was in the building. Everything seemed right, nothing was out of place. Her sleep potions remained where they had been when she’d corked them last night in preparation for the full moon, beside the shop’s large front window. Eira’s hands were planted on her wide hips, her toe tapping on the worn wooden floorboards.
“Does something feel off to you?” she said to Pennyroyal, who had hopped onto the desk and started smelling the various herbs Eira had left scattered across the surface.
The rabbit thumped its hind paws sharply, a quick, agreeing gesture.
“Yeah, I concur. Something isn’t right.” Eira said again, toe still tapping the ground in an anxious beat. She shook her shoulders in a stretch and exhaled loudly before sitting at her worktable. “Penny, we’re just going to need to cleanse the space and hope.”
The rabbit stomped its paws again.
Eira decided that making magic was the best way to restore peace in her space, so she got to work. With her sleeping potions all but done, she knew that she needed to stock up on healing poultices next. A little bit of lemon balm, witch hazel, and calendula got thrown into a bowl with a dash of several other herbs… and a little bit of Eira’s personal magic. Before she knew it, Eira was placing the salves into small jars with a tiny brush inside so that her customers could easily apply the poultice to whatever needed healing.
She hummed a song that the tavern’s bard had been playing the night before–the bard was new to town, and so many of the songs he’d played she had never heard before. But this one had stuck in her head as if she’d known it her whole life. “The wise witch watches, as the sweet soldier stares, the world waits for winter, the somber soul schemes…”
Once she managed to shake the strange feeling, her morning routine became much more peaceful–as it usually was. She placed the bottles of potions on the tables where her customers could shop and refreshed her herb stocks for anyone who needed a custom potion that day.
“The wise witch watches,” she sang again.
She wished more witches had been wise. When she’d opened her shop a few years ago there were still some witches on the run, the ones whose magic had been outlawed. A wise witch would have pretended they weren’t a witch at all, and then maybe some of them would have survived. Instead, Eira was left alone in Ciliren; not only the only potions witch in town, but the only witch entirely. The rest had been killed by the monsters of the Iron Empire for simply being able to wield the Flow…all because the Lord General had deemed that all magic aside from alchemical castings, potions and poultices were illegal.
Eira scolded herself for even thinking about the Flow. Even the term for Astra’s magic was all but forbidden now. As if the potions witches that survived had forgotten where their magic came from, but nevertheless, she wasn’t allowed to even reference the source of her livelihood anymore.
The shop bustled with customers coming and going, and the hours flew by. The bakery next door made the absolute best brisket Eira had ever had, so when her stomach’s grumbling became too loud for her to focus on anything else, she headed over to grab something to eat quickly before bringing it back to The Potions Patisserie. As she handed Pennyroyal her bowl of fruits and vegetables and sat down to dive into the excellent looking sandwich, the bell above the shop doorway sang in response to yet another customer interrupting Eira’s respite. No rest for the wicked, she thought with a wry smile, standing and brushing her skirts off as she looked up at the most ruggedly handsome man she’d ever seen.
Chapter Two: Rhona
Every morning, Rhona spent the first hour of her day carefully honing her blade, just as any dedicated knight would. She relished in the rhythm of it, polishing until it was shiny enough to reflect the faces of her enemies before they had the opportunity to strike.
The life of a knight had been relatively calm since the new regime had installed itself three years prior. It was a time of peace for the realm, and although Rhona dreamed of glorious war, she was also simply happy to have been good enough to be chosen.
She nodded to the other knights as she strode through the halls to the Lord General’s Quarters. Her cropped, dark waves danced as a stiff breeze blew through the floor to ceiling windows of the Great Hall, her footsteps echoing on the stone floors in her plate armor.
Rhona walked through the old throne room, a long empty hall that the Iron Empire kept completely bare as a symbol of their power, and through the back door to the Lord General’s office.
She saluted, standing at attention, her armor clinking as she raised her hand to the Iron Empire sigil on her chest. She watched him, stock-still, as he looked up from the map of the realm meticulously carved into the top of the heavy desk he sat at to look at her.
In the bloody aftermath of the uprising three and a half years ago, the Lord General had taken control of Astra and freed its citizens from the unjust tyranny of the De Clare dynasty. He was, and would always be, the leader Rhona aspired to be. To her joy, Lord General Kerrigan had taken leadership of her regiment when her previous Commander had fled the capital, leaving her under the direct report of the Lord General—an honor she hadn’t expected to experience until she’d climbed much higher in the Iron Empire’s ranks.
“Sir Rhona,” the Lord General spoke as he stood. “You may be at ease.”
“Thank you, Lord General,” Rhona said, her eyes meeting his easily. She was tall for a woman, having eclipsed her mother’s height from just twelve years old. The size that she had once been insecure about now made her more of a powerful knight, an opportunity solely granted to her by Lord General Kerrigan and his willingness to see her potential. The Iron Empire had seen her abilities, treasured her loyalty, and for that she would serve them for her entire life.
“Sir Rhona, I know you have been somewhat in limbo lately. After your Commander betrayed the Iron Empire, we needed to assess whether his heretical perspective infiltrated into his ranks,” Lord General Kerrigan started speaking to Rhona as he walked around the table towards her.
“As we move to apprehend the former Commander, we must also assess how you, and the other soldiers that had reported to Commander Hugo, will be reassigned moving forward,” Lord General Kerrigan didn’t pace or fidget with his hands; he stood in front of Rhona and spoke with an air of command. The light from the window behind him glinted off the small pin on his doublet with the Iron Empire’s sigil on it, the only mark he wore that signified his station. Even out of his armor and without a crown on his brow, Lord General Kerrigan was every inch a leader. “Your role in the uprising and your continued work protecting the Capital has been invaluable to the Iron Empire, and I have been watching you…I see your loyalty where others have faltered. We will be facing a shift soon and wanted to ensure you knew your time was coming—but also advise you to exercise patience as I determine the next steps for the Iron Retinue knights affected.”
“Thank you, Lord General,” Rhona answered, trying not to let the spark of hope that rose within her tinge her words. She’d been waiting for this, stuck in Astrad, the country’s capital, for three years. Her first tour after the uprising with Commander Hugo had been too short, and then he’d been recalled to the capital to work directly with Lord General Kerrigan. Rhona remembered that fateful first night of the new empire, when she’d fought her way through the castle side by side with her fellow rebels, and then hunted witches alongside them for months afterwards, only to be placed on…guard duty. The noble houses had once needed invitations to roam the castle, but those who had sided with the Iron Empire during the uprising now had free reign to do as they pleased within palace walls. Rhona had spent the last two years babysitting nobility as they walked and gossiped and drank, and she was tired of it. But this made it sound like something bigger was coming for her. A shiver of anticipation trickled down her spine.
“May the iron in your blood strengthen the iron in your sword, Sir Rhona. You are dismissed.”
“May the iron in your blood strengthen the iron in your sword,” Rhona responded, saluting before she headed out of the Lord General’s office.
Rhona rode out to the garden gates, passing lords and ladies with parasols making the short walk from the palace grounds to the gardens for their daily gossip sessions—or their daily courting sessions. Rhona didn’t think about romance in her own life. She’d fought through starvation and loneliness to get away from it before the Iron Retinue took her under its wing.
Rhona loathed gossiping but couldn’t deny the power of listening in on those who did gossip around her, and the number of lords and ladies who spilled information they shouldn’t around her had only escalated the longer she’d been guarding these vapid royals. Being a knight was an easy way to ensure that the nobility around you didn’t see you as a person who could spread the misdeeds of others, although they were correct in this case. Rhona never would.
The gardens were a mix of well-manicured hedges that were curated by the best botanists in the realm, and well-placed handrails that kept the garden’s visitors safe. The cliffs though? The cliffs made them the most beautiful gardens in all of the Iron Empire.
Not that Rhona had seen much of the glorious country in the past few years.
Claridge Castle sat on the precipice of a 300-foot-tall cliffside that led down to the Dark Sea, a roiling body of water that few sailed because of its tumultuous and unforgiving waters. The gardens also sat on that precipice, the expanse of the horizon and cliff path both in perfect view if you stood in one specific spot, which is exactly where Rhona headed as soon as she crossed into the gardens.
Rhona stood beside the cliffside walkway, watching to make sure no one attacked the nobility that traipsed the gardens, and also to protect them from their own stumbling feet. She’d grabbed many lords and ladies who had taken a wayward step and almost fallen off the cliffside, always reassuring them that they weren’t alone in their stumbling, protecting their egos as much as their lives.
This wasn’t quite what Rhona had expected when she dreamt of being a knight as a child in a family’s tiny farmhouse in a speck of a town in Astra, but it would do for now. She had envisioned glory on the battlefield and saving ladies from danger, but protecting them from an untimely death by falling could be honorable too, she supposed. Rhona felt guilt whenever she wished for a more violent Astra.
“Good morning, Sir Rhona,” a light voice said to her, startling Rhona out of her thoughts.
“Oh,” Rhona responded, a blush creeping onto her cheeks, “I didn’t notice your approach, my lady.”
She looked to see Lady Maeve Heathcote standing beside her, her ruffled pink dress and matching parasol in her hand a stark contrast to the iron plate Rhona wore.
“I didn’t mean to startle you, you just usually always greet me when I promenade, and I felt like you might be upset with me for something,” her rich brown eyes that matched her gleaming skin crinkled at the corners as she spoke.
“My lady, I was simply lost in thought. I have no reason to be angry with you.” Rhona responded, clasping her hands behind her back as she started sweating. Lady Heathecote’s beauty always made Rhona a little bit nervous.
Lady Maeve was everything that Rhona had wished she was as a child—petite with soft, luscious curves and a softer jawline. Rhona was all harsh lines and lithe muscle, and half of her peers had thought her a man as they all matured together.
“I am glad to hear it, Sir Rhona. I will see you tomorrow when I promenade next,” she said, nodding her head and popping open her parasol to continue her walk. “Oh,” Lady Maeve said, turning to look at Rhona with a glimmer in her eye, “And keep a close watch on Lord Wilmer today.”
Rhona watched Lady Maeve walk away until she could no longer see her for the garden’s rose bushes, wondering why the lady was the only member of the nobility who made her nervous.
The Iron Hex will be released on August 4, 2026, but you can pre-order it now.
Lacy Baugher Milas writes about Books and TV at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter and Bluesky at @LacyMB
Keep scrolling for more great stories.