A Deadly Education: A Novel

Naomi Novik

Sep 2020 · The Scholomance Book 1 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Anisha Dadia

About this audiobook

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver comes the first book of the Scholomance trilogy, the story of an unwilling dark sorceress who is destined to rewrite the rules of magic.

FINALIST FOR THE LODESTAR AWARD • “The dark school of magic I’ve been waiting for.”—Katherine Arden, author of the 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.

The magic of the Scholomance trilogy continues in The Last Graduate and The Golden Enclaves

“The can’t-miss fantasy of fall 2020, a brutal coming-of-power story steeped in the aesthetics of dark academia. . . . A Deadly Education will cement Naomi Novik’s place as one of the greatest and most versatile fantasy writers of our time.”—BookPage (starred review)

“A must-read . . . Novik puts a refreshingly dark, adult spin on the magical boarding school. . . . Readers will delight in the push-and-pull of El and Orion’s relationship, the fantastically detailed world, the clever magic system, and the matter-of-fact diversity of the student body.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Ratings and reviews

Very hard to get into because it was written in a way thatmade the world hard to understand and visualize. Almost as if it's a second book and we missed the introduction to the details of the world and explanations. however once i was about 3/4 into it,i began to get it and the story became really interesting. the author has made an extremely intricate fantasy world which is great but difficult to understand as i said. i will read the rest of the series since i have a slight grasp of it now and it was a good story.

An excellent augmentation of reality and fantasy; Naomi has yet to disappoint on that front. If the phrase "murder-Hogwarts" entices you in the slightest, definitely give this a shot. The audiobook version was very well directed and beautifully captured the narrative.

This is my second time buying and reading this book, and it's only confirmed itself as one of the best of our generation. The themes and foreshadowing that are paid off in the final book are clear almost from the beginning this time through, and the narrator does a good job with the huge number of accents required by the story.

About the author

Naomi Novik is the New York Times bestselling author of A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate, and The Golden Enclaves,  the award-winning novels Uprooted and Spinning Silver, and the Temeraire series. She is a founder of the Organization for Transformative Works and the Archive of Our Own. She lives in New York City with her family and six computers.