"The fact that none of you told me how good this book is when it came out LAST YEAR is completely unforgivable. What the heck, y'all. Obviously, anything likened to Naomi Novik or involving magic schools immediately grabs my attention, but I did not expect this series to consume my life in the ways that it did. This series is so much more than a magic school series. The first one reads like a slasher in the best way possible and the second one just keeps running at a breakneck pace. This is now one of my new favorite fantasy series and I'm so sad it took me this long to read it." – Courtney
“For readers who have just finished Naomi Novik’s The Golden Enclaves and are ravenous for more dark academia” (Booklist), this “pulse-pounding” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) fantasy thriller follows six teenage wizards as they fight to make it home alive after a malfunctioning spell leaves them stranded in the wilderness.
Ren Monroe has spent four years proving she’s one of the best wizards in her generation. But top marks at Balmerick University will mean nothing if she fails to get recruited into one of the major houses. Enter Theo Brood. If being rich were a sin, he’d already be halfway to hell. After a failed and disastrous party trick, fate has the two of them crossing paths at the public waxway portal the day before holidays; Theo’s punishment is to travel home with the scholarship kids—which doesn’t sit well with any of them.
A fight breaks out. In the chaos, the portal spell malfunctions. All six students are snatched from the safety of the school’s campus and set down in the middle of nowhere. And one of them is dead on arrival.
If anyone can get them through the punishing wilderness with limited magical reserves it’s Ren. She’s been in survival mode her entire life. But no magic could prepare her for the tangled secrets the rest of the group is harboring, or for what’s following them through the dark woods…
The meeting for book 1 will take place on Monday, July 22nd at 6:30 CST. Meeting for book 2 will take place in August.
