A Deadly Education: the Sunday Times bestseller

In the start of an all-new series, the bestselling author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver introduces you to a dangerous school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death - until one girl begins to rewrite its rules.

Enter a school of magic unlike any you have ever encountered. There are no teachers, no holidays, friendships are purely strategic, and the odds of survival are never equal. Once you're inside, there are only two ways out: you graduate or you die.

El Higgins is uniquely prepared for the school's many dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out untold millions - never mind easily destroy the countless monsters that prowl the school. Except, she might accidentally kill all the other students, too. So El is trying her hardest not to use it... that is, unless she has no other choice.

Wry, witty, endlessly inventive, and mordantly funny - yet with a true depth and fierce justice at its heart - this enchanting novel reminds us that there are far more important things than mere survival.

'Hilarious and wild! Take any fictional magic school, make it as over-the-top dangerous as possible, and populate it with a bunch of snarky teenagers; the result is pure batshit fun.' N.K. Jemisin, three-time Hugo Award winner and author of The Fifth Season

'A Deadly Education is a book that lives up to its gobsmacker of an opening sentence ... Naomi Novik is relentlessly innovative and entertaining.' Terry Brooks

'A nightmare from which I never wished to wake. Savage, inventive, and soulful, Novik grasps the totems of childhood that linger in your mind-schools of magic, curses, cutthroat classmates, monsters-only to twist them into a grand new tale that'll make you believe in magic again.' Pierce Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Dark Age

'The Scholomance is the dark school of magic I've been waiting for, and its wise, witty, and monstrous heroine is one I'd happily follow anywhere-even into a school full of monsters.' Katherine Arden, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale