Elodie and the Dark Lord (A Theory in Curses, #1)

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 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.