Autorentext

Ashley Poston is the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics, The Seven Year Slip, A Novel Love Story, and Sounds Like Love. She writes full-time from her little gray house and spoils her four cats. When not writing, she bides her time in South Carolina and New York, and all the bookstores between.

Klappentext

**This special first edition includes an enchanting cover with effects, beautifully illustrated interior art, and striking stenciled edges.

To save her brother, a magicless librarian must infiltrate a magical academy and trust a Dark Lord, in the first novel in a spellbinding new fantasy duology from the New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Year Slip.**

Elodie Kess is a librarian in a quiet seaside town on the far reaches of the kingdom. It’s not adventure and whirlwind romance, but as a scholar of magic with a strange affliction that deadens spells upon her touch, reading about it is the closest she can get.

Her unremarkable life is upended when her brother Emmerick, an esteemed professor at the High Arcanum Conservatory, disappears alongside his coveted research. Knowing she's the only one who can save him, Elodie infiltrates the Conservatory glamoured as a graduate student. Her prime suspect: the school's most infamous professor, a centuries-old Dark Lord cursed to live as a cat.

When Elodie’s affliction unexpectedly dispels his curse—revealing the disarmingly attractive man beneath—the two become unlikely allies. As they investigate Emmerick's disappearance, Elodie discovers the Dark Lord is nothing like the villain of legend—and soon finds herself risking not only her life, but her heart. Because while history may be written by its victors, every legend contains a grain of truth, and the Dark Lord was cursed for a reason . . .

Zusammenfassung
To save her brother, a magicless librarian must infiltrate a magical academy and trust a Dark Lord, in the first novel in a spellbinding new fantasy duology from the New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Year Slip.

Thirty-eight-year-old Elodie Kess is content with her quiet life as a librarian in a seaside town, at the furthest reaches of the Kingdom. After all, a scholar of magic with no magical ability is quite useless. Even if she cannot cast spells herself, it brings her endless pride that her brother, Emmerick, not only has a rare talent for magic, but is an esteemed professor at the High Arcanum Conservatory.

But when Emmerick goes missing—along with his closely guarded research—Elodie is the only one who can rescue him.

The head Enchanter of the Conservatory and Elodie hatch a plan to glamour her as a first-year graduate student, so she can infiltrate the institution to find out what happened. Her most likely suspect? The Conservatory’s least favorite professor—a centuries-old Dark Lord, now defanged and de-magicked, sentenced to a lifetime cursed as a cat.

When her ability to repel magic accidentally dispels his curse at her touch—unveiling the disarmingly attractive man he once was—he becomes her best ally. Finding herself pulled into the Dark Lord’s orbit, he is surprisingly different than her studies suggest. He is brilliant with magic, and thoughtful in surprising ways. As Elodie and the Dark Lord work together, she begins to question everything she’s been taught about him, and soon guarding her heart seems impossible. But for every lie in the history books, there is a grain of truth, and the Dark Lord was cursed for a reason . . .