To save her brother, a magicless librarian must infiltrate a magic school and trust a Dark Lord, in this spellbinding and enchanting new tale from the New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Year Slip.

Thirty-eight-year-old Elodie Kess is content in her quiet life as her village’s librarian. Perhaps not happy – but she has come to terms with that. After all, a scholar of magic with no magical talent of her own is quite useless in the kingdom of Abrea.

By contrast, her younger brother is a rare talent in magic on the verge of a breakthrough. And when he disappears in the High Arcanum Conservatory – along with his research notes – Elodie believes she may be the only one who can rescue him.

She and the headmaster come up with a plan: glamour Elodie as a first-year graduate student to infiltrate the institution. She doesn’t intend for her ineptitude for magic accidentally undoing the curse on the Conservatory’s least favorite professor – a centuries-old Dark Lord, now defanged and de-magicked, cursed forever as a cat.

The Dark Lord is surprisingly charming and disarmingly handsome (when he’s not a cat), and seemingly her best ally. Elodie knows it would be dangerous to give him her heart. Especially when, rumor is, he used to eat them.

‘I LOVED this book’ Ali Hazelwood

'Ashley Poston has done it again…Whimsical, emotional, and tender' B.K. Borison

‘An absolute and unexpected delight…the pages will probably sparkle (but with black glitter)’ Christina Lauren

‘Consider me Ashley Poston’s greatest admirer!’ Carley Fortune

'Smart, quick, and absolutely bubbling over with love for the genre of romance itself’ Emma Straub

'No one tells stories like Ashley Poston' Lindsey Kelk