"If you are a fan of magic schools, and chosen-one characters who are determined to subvert their prophetic existence, then A Deadly Education is exactly the book you want to be reading. This takes place in a magical school with no teachers, suspended in the void, where literally everything is trying to eat you, and learning magic is the only way to ensure basic survival. It's the Dark Souls of the magical school genre. Naomi Novik had the both of us gripped from the first page and refused to let go until we'd clipped through it. El is delightfully snarky in her narration, and the relationship between her and this story's sparkling hero (who is, in fact, a great deconstruction of that trope) is all you could hope for from an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers plot. It's fun as hell."
Publisher Del Rey
Publication Date 2020-09-29
Section New Hardcover - Fiction / Science Fiction / All Staff Suggestions / Fiction Suggestions
Format Hardcover
ISBN 9780593128480
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver comes the story of an unwilling dark sorceress who is destined to rewrite the rules of magic.
“The dark school of magic I’ve been waiting for.” Katherine Arden, author of Winternight Trilogy
I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life.
Everyone loves Orion Lake. Everyone else, that is. Far as I’m concerned, he can keep his flashy combat magic to himself. I’m not joining his pack of adoring fans.
I don’t need help surviving the Scholomance, even if they do. Forget the hordes of monsters and cursed artifacts, I’m probably the most dangerous thing in the place. Just give me a chance and I’ll level mountains and kill untold millions, make myself the dark queen of the world.
At least, that’s what the world expects. Most of the other students in here would be delighted if Orion killed me like one more evil thing that’s crawled out of the drains. Sometimes I think they want me to turn into the evil witch they assume I am. The school certainly does.
But the Scholomance isn’t getting what it wants from me. And neither is Orion Lake. I may not be anyone’s idea of the shining hero, but I’m going to make it out of this place alive, and I’m not going to slaughter thousands to do it, either.
Although I’m giving serious consideration to just one.
With flawless mastery, Naomi Novik creates a school bursting with magic like you’ve never seen before, and a heroine for the ages—a character so sharply realized and so richly nuanced that she will live on in hearts and minds for generations to come.
