The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones

by Lex Croucher

Casey McQuiston meets The Secret History in this unmissable dark academia fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Lex Croucher following former childhood best friends who reunite at magical boarding school after years, only to find themselves enemies on opposite sides of the ugly secrets hidden within the gilded walls.

Welcome to the Temple School of Thaumaturgy ... and your newest dark academia obsession.

For as long as they can remember, Briar Jones dreamed of attending the Temple School of Thaumaturgy. Behind its looming ornate gates, the elite prep school—the place that has produced the most CEOs and Prime Ministers in British history—is whispered to be magical. 

Briar's best friend, Sebastian Wolfe, never cared about Temple or believed in the rumors. He just wanted them to stay together forever. 

When, at age 11, Seb gets an acceptance letter and Briar doesn't, their childhood friendship is shattered. Seb vanishes onto Temple's grounds and Briar resigns themself to a mundane life. But they can't completely forget their yearning for Temple, for the extraordinary, to be one of the chosen in the ivory tower. 

Seven years later, a summer job advert a temp position sorting through the junk in Temple’s attics. Briar takes it. And they discover that quiet, sensitive Seb, the boy they once loved more than anything else in the world, has become a beautiful, arrogant villain feared by most of the school. And worse, the secrets Temple is hiding might not be so magical after all, but a dark conspiracy with implications that extend far beyond the gates.

Genres: Fantasy, Dark Academia, Queer, LGBT, Romance, Young Adult, Fiction

320 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication June 9, 2026

About the author

Lex Croucher grew up in Surrey, reading a lot of books and making friends with strangers on the internet, and now lives in London with an elderly cat. With a background in social media for NGOs, Lex now writes historical-ish rom coms for adults (REPUTATION, INFAMOUS) and historical fantasy rom coms for teenagers. GWEN AND ART ARE NOT IN LOVE is their YA debut.

Reviews

[Morwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fuck, I'm in love with this book, okay?

Think: there is a very Hogwartsy institute not too far where you live and you wait for that admission letter like we all did after first reading Harry Potter. Only that your *best friend* gets in and you don't. Until you kinda do, but not as a scholar. Only that it's not at all the rainbows and kittens you dreamt it was, and you have no idea if you now wish you left the memory of the dream and of your childhood love intact, or if it's better having your heart broken all over again in several ways.

He is the asshole. No, you're the asshole. They (most of the extended cast) are surely the asshole.
Everyone is an asshole, so nobody is really an asshole. Readers included, cause we are all real people doing asshole and non-asshole stuff.

If you want to see a more visual review you can check my IG post CHECK OUT MY INSTAGRAM CAROUSEL REVIEW

Pre-read
I was very intrigued by this title. I need magic in my books so there was a bit of push and pull before I curiosity won over!

[Mei ☽︎]

Why did I have to find out about this book right now when it's freaking coming out October 2025???? 😭

[Maeghan 🦋 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Huge thanks to NetGalley & the publishers for a chance to review this arc!

I feel very conflicted about this read because I think the writing was very compelling & nostalgic - but I had a few issues with the story.

Bastian & Briar were inseparable until Bastian got accepted in a magical school and Briar didn’t. A lot of resentment unfolded and they only see each other 7 years later - when Briar gets a cleaning job at said school.

I was really enjoying the mystery & found family in the first half of this novel. There’s queer representations and it was well done. I will admit I couldn’t get attached to the characters because they felt very far to me. I don’t quite know how to explain it but sometimes Briar’s lack of reaction snapped me out of the story. That character was also very persistent in their naïveté through the whole story. There were 2 plotholes I noticed… but ultimately what really hindered my reading experience was the ‘romance’. It was extremely toxic and very high school romance coded. I wish it didn’t have romance because I could not root for them.

Drugs are heavily mentioned and there’s usage on page as well. Now I know some people don’t necessarily mind that and I respect it… but I don’t like reading about it. With drug addict parents - I guess I just don’t want to read about that and I know it’s entirely subjective.
What was also a bit jarring to me is that the writing did feel very YA (despite being marketed as Adult) so the torture scenes of humans & animals, with all the scenes of almost SA were very shocking. And I just think that the problem for me… was the fact that they weren’t really discussed or solved afterwards. It did feel as if they were there for shock value only.

I think the resolution was lightning fast, for a story that drew the ending on and on. It was resolved in a YA way - which accentuated the feeling I had about this being possibly mismarketed. I do feel unsatisfied with the ending but that’s only because I wish the story had kept the edge it had all along.

[Rachel Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐️ 2.5🌶️

- Dark academia / Magical School
- Magic systems
- non-binary/ queer rep
- Fighting establishment
- Friends-to-enemies-to-lovers
- Slow-burn tension
- Forced proximity
- Trials

Seb and Briar are inseparable, until one day Seb receives a letter to the country’s only school of magic while Briar does not. Years later, Briar arrives at the school on a temporary job contract and discovers their former best friend, the boy they once loved, has become a villain. However, nothing is as it seems…As Briar explores hidden attics, forgotten studies and long-buried memories, they race to uncover the truth behind the school’s ancient walls. They must find who they can trust, as they unearth secrets with far-reaching consequences…

The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones is a brilliant, queer, dark-academia story that explores power, longing, and all the complexities of human relationships. It’s an emotional, smart, and powerful read and once I picked it up I couldn’t put down!

The story is intensely character-driven, especially the first half, and slower pacing really gives the characters room to evolve and grow. Every character is flawed, complicated, and carrying old wounds, yet fiercely loyal in their own ways. So many moments broke my heart a little, it completely captures the duality of human relationships in all their beauty and brutality.

I felt so invested in all the characters, especially Seb. The longing, heartbreak, and quiet desperation throughout his story had me desperately hoping for a happy ending!

Also the queer representation is so appreciated, it’s seamlessly woven into the bones of the story rather than sidelined.

The ending was perfect, even if I was a little devastated to realise this is a standalone. I wanted more time with these characters and I’m not ready to let them go!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for the ARC.

[Eleni Chapman]

the blurb is giving school for good and evil vibes and i’m not sure i’m emotionally ready for that

[Mukireads · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did appreciate this book, and all that Lex conveys there; it's also a beautiful story on love and friendship, and the characters are written with a lot of care and tenderness.

I did however not love it, and I suspect that my position as a subjective reader is to blame for it. I went into this book assuming it would have Lex's usual lightheartedness, and that I would have a good laugh, but this is not what this book is, and I should not have gotten into this book with such expectations, I should have been opened to whatever Lex Croucher wanted to do with their first dark academia book, so this is absolutely my fault!

Thank you Netgalley and Harper Voyager for the ARC.

[Vanessa Hermanns · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 Stars — Unexpected, Clever, and Delightfully Odd!

First of all, as always, thank you so much to Harper Voyager and NetGalley for the ARC! I’m honored that you gift me your wonderful books to read and sprinkle my little commentaries all over.

I went into The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones expecting one thing and got something entirely different, and honestly, I *really* enjoyed it. Dark academia is probably my favorite genre and this did not disappoint.

The writing is sharp, clever, and genuinely funny in a way that feels almost unintentional. The whole story was giving, “What if everyone at Hogwarts was a Slytherin, but it was written and directed by Wes Anderson.” energy.

It’s semi-whimsical, a little offbeat, and filled with delicious morally gray ambition. It’s almost like the characters wrote themselves.

What I loved that really stood out was the queer representation. I’ll admit, as someone who’s probably a little too Gen X to process they/them pronouns on autopilot, it took me a minute to fully settle in, but once I did, I really appreciated the perspective shift. I actually enjoy reading stories about characters I don’t personally identify with because I feel like it stretches me as a reader. This queer love story was exquisitely written and will live with me rent-free for quite some time.

Pacing-wise, I never felt bored. I was fully invested the entire time. The book didn’t lag for me at all, which is always a win. It was wonderfully strange in a way that made the whole experience memorable!

[Liv Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

LEX CROUCHER YOU ARE SO COOL YOUR BOOKS ARE SO GOOD!!!!

this book was one of my highest anticipated upcoming releases and i can say that it without a doubt lived up to all my hopes dreams and expectations. it was SO good. i love dark academia fantasy, and this book is easily a five star addition to the genre. i loved the characters, the plot, the magic, the atmosphere, the writing… everything really. it felt fresh compared to other similar books, having all the best traits of dark academia while introducing something new at the same time. i could keep going on and on about things i loved in this book, but honestly i just think everyone should read it for themselves when it comes out.

thank you so so so much to netgalley and the publisher for the arc (i actually squealed when i got approved to read this i was so excited) and thank you icon lex croucher for writing yet another banger of a book

[Kayte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Briar Jones is finally going to the magic school of their dreams—as a low-level, temporary employee with no magical ability whatsoever. The bloom very quickly comes off the rose as Briar realizes that what was magical and full of promise as a child is grim, elitist, and possibly murdery (which, fair; most of us do). This is not my first book by Lex Croucher, but was distinctly different to their others. While The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones still showcases Croucher's particular brand of humour (which I adore), it's heavier and more grown-up, even in comparison to Croucher's other adult offerings.

WRITING
Literally no notes.
The magic is explained in a way that makes sense but isn't over-the-top detailed
Excellent balance of humour and gravity
Sentences flow wonderfully; wish I could write half so well.
The characters have FLAWS. They are NUANCED. Good people can do shitty things, especially when they're eighteen and don't have fully developed BRAINS yet.

REPRESENTATION
I've read (and enjoyed) other books with queer and/or nonbinary characters that have at times felt a little bit preachy. Croucher did not bother with this. Briar exists, uses they/them pronouns, and the sort of people you would expect to have a problem with that kind of turn their noses up but it's not the main plotline of the story. The same goes for Westby and Bastian (both queer) and Tate Adams, who is Black and against whom I will hear absolutely no slander (love you, Tatey-poo). "Acknowledge and move on" is my favourite type of representation <3

ROMANCE
Look, I requested this book from NetGalley having read a blurb for it eons ago. I forgot there was romance, so that was a fun surprise for me! This book is not a romance, but has romance in it. It feels a little abrupt, but makes sense in context and is well-developped and not frought for the sake of ✨The Drama✨.

Yaaay I loved this everyone read it when it comes out properly.

[Nrosenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

ARC provided by NetGalley and this is my honest review.

Look, I haven’t had a cigarette since Election Day 2024. For pretty much all of “The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones” I needed one. Fucking hell. This was a lot.

Let’s get my one quibble out of the way. I don’t think this should be marketed as YA. Yes, Briar and Bastian are young adults, but these themes and plot points are… a lot. It’s all the angst and dread from Croucher’s previous works put on steroids. Everything is handled quite well, but yeah… just… a lot. I don’t think I was an emotionally mature enough high schooler to read this. Hell, I’m pushing 30 and I had a hard time reading this.

Anywho, “The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones” was one of my most anticipated books of the year. Thankfully, I was not disappointed. I was so hooked and couldn’t put it down, even when I was so disturbed and upset. The book reminded me mostly of “Let The Dead Bury The Dead” and “Cursed Crown” Duology in that respect. Hooked, but upset.

What mostly makes Croucher’s writing so successful is that we want Seb to be redeemed. Bastian is pretty despicable, but we read about sweet Seb and we want him back.

I loved Briar as a narrator and protagonist. They’re not perfect, but they’re someone we truly root for. I liked a lot of the gender beats and Briar’s own identity. Very strong.

Finally, thank God for happy (or hopeful perhaps) endings. Like I said, I had so much dread for most of this book and the ending healed me a bit. The powers of love and hope and redemption and forgiveness are nothing to be trifled with.

I can’t wait for this to hit libraries and book stores. Will definitely be buying my own copy so I can revisit it. Will be thinking about Briar, Sebastian and the others for a long while. Considering the surprise sequel to “Gwen And Art Are Not In Love”, would be hopeful to see more of this story in the future. Lots of potential.

[Kris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Lex Croucher and the nice people at Avon/Harper Voyager for the ARC!

I’m a big fan of Lex Croucher’s other works and this fits right into the pantheon. A morally grey, queer treatise in the dark academia genre, Lex explores themes of class and caste through Briar’s lens. This book gave me “Ninth House” by Leigh Bardugo vibes, but in a ‘hell is empty and the devils are all here’ way. I immediately fell into the world created, and though I didn’t always agree with or even like some of the cast of characters, it is an enjoyable ride. Some bits were laugh out loud witty, and then it flips to devastatingly sad and then becomes an exploration of grief in its many forms.
Highly recommend, I can’t wait for more people step beyond the gates of Temple.

[Joann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me start by saying this ARC is incredibly well written. I can tell the author put a lot of thought behind the plot, characters, and every word on the page.

When I read the blurb, I think I was anticipating more of a traditional dark academia fantasy romance. Not necessarily Zodiac Academy of Forbidden Alchemy, but within the same playground. I would say this is a pretty big departure. I’d categorize this as queer lit within a dark academia setting. (The queer storytelling isn’t repetitive or overdone by any means, but every character is LGBTQIA2S+).

For me personally, it was hard to grasp the main characters and understand this incredibly deep, vulnerable connection they shared from childhood up to the age of 11. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had friendships that brutally intense in my adolescence, but it threw me off from the start of the book. The rage and betrayal Briar feels towards Bastian for leaving them at 11 y/o seems a bit…much.

The other difficult elements to swallow was the depictions of graphic child abuse (on page) and animal abuse/harm (both on and off page). I felt every time the latter was mentioned was unnecessary and didn’t add to the story. As this was an ARC, I can see why trigger warnings wouldn’t be added, but I wish I had known going into this what “dark” meant in the blurb.

PS: If you liked Atlas Six or The Magicians, I’d recommend this.

[Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Briar Jones I would die for you, I would kill for you, but most importantly I would bake you cookies and tuck you under a fluffy blanket.

Proper review to come

[ARC from Netgalley]

[randi rush · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5
i wanted to like this more, especially because i’m actually obsessed with the cover. it was interesting enough and there were a couple of mysterious aspects to the story that intriguing, but i wasn’t really feeling it. i just didn’t fully connect to the writing, which made me feel sort of detached from everything happening.

the romance progression was also off to me. the switch from enemies to lovers felt so sudden, where one moment they were literally fist fighting and then the next they were in love, with no development in between. like i get that they were childhood best friends, and it was probably meant to be somewhat toxic, but they didn’t really redevelop their rapport before getting together. i also couldn’t ever gauge how they actually felt about each other, so the whole thing just felt strange. but the side characters were definitely a bright spot in this, and they added a fun dynamic to the cast.

thank you to netgalley and avon and harper voyager for the arc!

[amie]

I need this soooooo bad

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huge thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an e-Arc in exchange for an honest review!

“I thought you were the untouchable king of the dicks.”

“What’s wrong lassie? Pip fallen down a well? Shortage at the muscle tshirt factory?”

Lex Croucher books have always had a hold on my heart, I’ve read Reputation and Infamous multiple times each, and Briar Jones has quickly fallen in the footsteps of their predecessors.

It’s what every book that claims to be “dark academia” should aspire to be - critical of systems of power and oppression. It goes beyond the aesthetics and gets to the heart of the genre. The added element of magic being held in the hands of Temple students compounds this.

Briar Jones is a witty, comical, and romantic story with a compelling cast of imperfect characters.

It’s home to important themes - what does it mean to be a good person? What does it mean to be bad? Is anyone truly either?

My one struggle point was fully getting the magic system (which fit with the story lol) and wishing we got an even better look at Bastian’s powers.

I can’t wait own this and add it to my collection.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you for the eARC!

The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones is a unapologetically dark, disturbing and often toxic addition to the genre of queer dark academia. When I heard Lex Croucher - an author whom I love for their banter, queer rep and humour - I was unsure how their writing would play out under a darker tone and adult voice. It turns out I need not have worried, as Lex Croucher took the elements I already love from their work (diverse queer rep, group dynamics and quippy one liners) and simultaneously blended them with a much darker voice filled with violence, yearning and that oh-so-beautiful queer rage.

The relationship between Bastian and Briar is by far the shining quality of this story. From the glimpses into past devotion to the far more twisted reality of their current relationship. The tension between the two; sometimes violent, sometimes wanting, more often than not both, lept off the page and kept me hooked from beginning to end.

My only reason for not hitting the 5-star rating is that the entire book left me wanting more. The main note I gave to friends whilst reading is "I want this book to have 200 more pages". I loved the glimpses into the power imbalances, toxic relationships and violence as a love language; but I kept wanting to urge the book to take it further and lean into those darker elements and fully commit to the malevolent tone so often present in dark academia. I think a longer book would have allowed more exploration into the themes and the larger cast of characters, and provided the opportunity for relationships and emotions to have felt more solidified before the plot moved forward.
Nonetheless, as a first book in this genre, and one which is markedly different from the authors previous work, I think TULoBJ holds up well and offers an really great dark academia story for those who have maybe not ventured into the genre before and would like a taste of the key themes coupled with the guarantee of a happier resolution.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stayed up until 2am to finish this and cracked open the first page at breakfast to read it all again WITH KNOWLEDGE. Currently back home with family and I don’t want to talk to anyone I just want to read Briar Jones.

I will say it again: Lex Croucher is an automatic buy author for me. If they write a sci fi epic in verse next I will buy it. Idc I know they can pull it off.

Jokes aside, this is so masterfully executed. The characters are so rich I felt like I could touch them. When Briar steps into their attic bedroom only to find three rebel scholars I was curious to see how we were going to connect to so many characters in the short period of time they were going to be at Temple. I shouldn’t have worried. Westby, Hadley and Tate are my favourite scooby gang since Buffy (and OG scoobies of course). I would die for them.

I thought Croucher navigated Briar’s complicated feelings with having wanted to belong at Temple so bad, resentment towards the institution that took their friend Seb from them, the fact they STILL want to be a magician despite realising the school is a toxic proliferation of privileged violence is… chef’s kiss.

Briar and Bastian’s best friends to enemies to lovers arc is literally to die for. So much darker than Croucher’s other works and a welcome change. It still felt very much like one of their books. The quippy one liners had me giggling at 2am in my cousin’s childhood bedroom. I’m gonna go back to rereading it now. Bye.

[Michaela Whitney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy through NetGalley for review.

I wasn't sure where this one was going to go, but I really loved it. It's a 4.5 for me.
What if you and your best childhood friend spent all your time imagining how it would be to go to the local elusive school for magic and you didn't get in, and seemingly your best friend never spoke to you again, and it devastated your childhood.
7 years later Briar Jones (a fantastic non-binary rep) gets a summer job at said school and has to sign an NDA. and finds that their childhood friend has turned into one of the dark creepy jerks that looms over the younger students at the academy, first acts like he doesn't know them, and then tells them to leave him alone. They realize that the magic school doesn't have a lot of rules, and they use their powers to abuse and humiliate the lower students - or anyone without enough power to hold them off. And they'll leave this place as potential world leaders and continue their abuse of it with no strings attached, as a member of a sort of inside club.

The school has a lot of secrets and many of them seem to be buried in the room Briar just happens to be hired to clean out. Have you ever wanted to completely screw an unfair system? This may be for you.

[Hadley Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for an e-ARC of this book, and thank you to my friend Lucky for telling me to read this one pronto!

Oh my god this is one of the best books I’ve read so far this year! Come for the magic school, stay for the lessons on classism and and the dark underbelly of elite schools built on ‘tradition’.

Briar’s job listing might be janitorial staff, but Briar’s real job is arms and fighting (their past? the students? the system? Yes to all!)

I was locked in for the entire book and you will be too. There is drama! There is angst! There is comedy (janitor is my new favorite gender)!

(Also Westby has correct opinions on later generation pokemon)

[Demetri · Rating 4 out of 5]

What the Janitor Sees in the House of Magic
On class, memory, cruelty, and the long theft of wonder in “The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones”
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | April 9th, 2026


At the boundary where exclusion, memory, and desire meet, Briar faces the old architecture that taught wonder how to become property.

The quickest way to strip glamour from a magical institution is to hire the rejected applicant to clean it. That is the shrewd, slightly wicked premise engine of “The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones,” a school fantasy that begins by pushing its excluded hero through the servants’ entrance and then refuses to let the building recover its mystique. Briar, denied entry to Temple School, returns not as scholar but as staff: dusting dorms, dragging carts, clearing rubbish, sorting the attic, learning the place through mildew, mess and maintenance rather than through ceremony. It is an excellent narrative decision. Once Briar is wiping down the desks of boys in capes, magic ceases to feel like transcendence and starts to look like property.

That shift in vantage turns out to be the novel’s governing intelligence. Temple does not merely teach thaumaturgy. It hoards it, stages it, perfumes it with history, then calls the resulting exclusivity natural. The old stone glows, the chapel hums, the rituals thicken with Latin, the chosen boys move through the place with the lacquered assurance of hereditary entitlement. But Briar meets all that grandeur carrying spray bottles and laundry bags. The novel understands that prestige is not only performed from above. It is preserved from below. Somebody has to scrub the corridor, empty the bin, sort the records, keep the whole grand machine from smelling like a dorm full of frightened teenage boys. “The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones” is very good on the ordinary labour required to keep wonder looking inevitable.


In the dust-struck hush of a scholar’s room, old intimacy returns first as muscle memory, then as danger.

That is one of its least flashy and most valuable strengths. This is, among other things, a school novel about class access disguised as a fantasy. Temple has sold its students a myth of innate fitness. Briar’s route through the institution exposes a simpler truth: the school is not protecting civilization from the unworthy. It is protecting a choke point. The chosen are chosen because somebody controls the texts, the pledge, the sequence of initiation and the right to call secrecy virtue. The title’s irony is therefore exact. Briar’s life has never been unmagical in essence. It has been made unmagical by gatekeeping.

The novel, to its credit, does not leave this argument at the level of system. It tangles institutional monopoly with a much messier personal history. Briar’s rejected application is inseparable from Sebastian Wolfe, the childhood best friend who did get into Temple and has since become one of its most formidable scholars. When the two are thrown back together, the book initially presents their relationship in the pleasingly poisonous shape of grievance. Briar has spent years nursing abandonment and jealousy; Bastian appears all polished damage, old money and lethal poise, a boy made over by the institution that took him. The obvious version of this story would let that opposition stand for a while, then melt it into romance. This novel is more interested in what has been misremembered, manipulated or outright stolen in the years between.

That is where the book stops being merely enjoyable and becomes genuinely interesting. “The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones” is a fantasy novel about power, yes, but beneath that it is a novel about narrative custody. Who gets to decide what happened? Who gets to edit pain into usefulness? Who gets to rearrange another person’s past and call it care? The revelation that Briar’s memory of a catastrophic Christmas has been blocked by thaumaturgic interference is not just a clever plot turn. It reorients the book’s whole moral atmosphere. Temple’s violence is no longer only social, educational or bodily. It is archival. It extends into recollection itself.

That makes the restoration of memory one of the book’s best structural choices. Each major disclosure reaches backward and changes the temperature of what came before. Abandonment becomes misreading. Injury becomes management. Private heartbreak widens into institutional trespass. What looked at first like a familiar story of a magical school outsider discovering corruption gradually becomes a novel about how systems preserve themselves not only through ritual and intimidation but through control of the terms by which people understand their own lives. The book keeps finding ways to turn revelation into reinterpretation rather than mere information. It is a stronger design than its headlong momentum first suggests.

The recovered Christmas material matters especially because it refuses Briar the comfort of moral innocence. This is one of the book’s biggest artistic risks, and one of the reasons it works. A more timid novel would have kept Briar as the wronged outsider and Bastian as the compromised insider, then built reconciliation on that sturdy asymmetry. Instead, it reveals that Briar is not simply excluded, angry and injured. Briar is also violent, self-protective, unreliable about the self, and capable of taking a terrible pleasure in force once anger has found a body to travel through. The near-fatal confrontation with Jason is not there just to make Briar darker. It is there to ruin the fantasy that personal injury guarantees personal virtue.

The novel takes an equal risk with Bastian, and here too it is mostly right to do so. He is never softened into harmlessness. He remains implicated in Temple’s brutality, in coercion, in the use of conduct and inquiry, in the ordinary sadisms by which frightened boys become polished instruments of hierarchy. Yet the book also insists, just as firmly, that he is not reducible to those acts. He is terrified, lonely, overpowered by the very abilities that elevate him, at once ashamed of his complicity and dependent on the institution that rewards it. Bastian could easily have become one of those fantasy antiheroes who are said to be dangerous but are finally just decorative. Instead he is genuinely unstable moral weather: tender, evasive, frightened, coercive, needy, proud, intermittently ridiculous and often very moving.

That complexity gives the central romance its real charge. The love story in “The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones” is not compelling because it is forbidden. It is compelling because power never leaves the room. Every embrace is shadowed by Conduct. Every confession comes with the possibility of influence, command, induced calm or manipulated feeling. The novel knows this, and does not let desire float free of it. That makes Briar and Bastian’s intimacy feel less like catharsis than like negotiation under pressure. Their tenderness is real; so is the contamination around it. The book’s emotional intelligence lies in refusing to cleanly separate the two.

It also has the nerve to be funny in ways that sharpen, rather than soften, its critique. The capes are funny. The rituals are funny. The little aristocrats with their perfectly enunciated menace are frequently very funny. Westby in particular brings a dry, fussy, grief-struck comic voltage to the novel that keeps it from hardening into self-importance. But the humour is not a release valve slapped onto darker material. It is part of the diagnosis. The joke is not that these boys are ridiculous instead of threatening. The joke is that they are ridiculous and threatening at once, which is a far more recognizable social type. The book understands how often power sounds absurd in its own preferred idiom, and how rarely that absurdity makes it less dangerous.

The supporting cast helps enormously. Hadley, Tate and Westby are more than sidekicks in the resistance plot; each embodies a different survival style produced by Temple. Hadley is fury sharpened into velocity, all grievance, bravado and damage. Tate supplies procedural intelligence and conscience. Westby is a brittle marvel of appetite, camp fussiness, grief and intellectual greed, and the novel would be poorer without his ability to sound simultaneously heartbroken and scandalized by bad tea. Together they widen the book beyond the Briar-Bastian dyad and keep Temple from reading as a private melodrama between lovers rather than a machine that manufactures specific forms of injury.


Beneath the school’s stone authority, the chalice waits at the center of a ritual designed to turn fear into obedience.

The prose is one reason so much of this lands. It is brisk without being thin, tactile without becoming lush, funny without trying to show off its own cleverness. It likes exact physical indignities: bruised fingers, cut throats, spit, dust, blood, damp stone, cheap bedding, stale tea, bodily panic. It has a nice line in aristocratic grotesquerie and schoolboy nastiness, but it is strongest whenever it drags abstraction back into sensation. That choice matters. A novel about monopolized magic could easily drift upward into thesis. This one keeps pulling us down into throats, knuckles, corridors and rugs. Even its ideas tend to arrive with scrapes on them.

The book’s central achievement, then, is not simply that it pairs a love story with an anti-elitist fantasy plot. It is that it makes both parts answer to the same question: what happens when something life-altering has been enclosed, ritualized and renamed so thoroughly that even the excluded begin to mistake theft for destiny? By the time the novel reveals that the school’s transformative power is not the sacred inheritance of a chosen few but a practical art artificially locked away, its politics feel earned by the story rather than pasted onto it. The release of the texts is not a last-minute allegorical flourish. It is the logical conclusion of everything the novel has already shown about access, prestige and managed scarcity.

That said, the book does overreach in several places. Alistair Buckingham begins as a vivid enough antagonist – cruel, vain, socially fluent, at once sadistic and utterly convinced of his own legitimacy. But by the final run his function starts to overtake his particularity. He narrows from volatile person into the concentrated embodiment of what the book needs him to represent. Similarly, some of the late Trial material reiterates the school’s cruelty after the point has already been made. The novel’s appetite for escalation occasionally outruns its appetite for variation. And once the story pivots from private recovery and school conspiracy into public release, collapse and aftershock, one can feel compression at work. The final movement is exciting and emotionally satisfying, but it carries a great deal of material very quickly. There are points where one feels the book leaping toward the scale of its ideas faster than it can fully metabolize them.

Still, I would much rather read a novel that risks that breadth than one that retreats into tasteful smallness. A tidier version of “The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones” would have ended with the lovers repaired, the school exposed just enough, and a clean local victory in hand. This book sees that such an ending would betray its own argument. If Temple’s deepest sin is not merely what it does to individual children but the fact that it sits atop transformative knowledge and calls the lock tradition, then private healing cannot be enough. The archive has to break open. The world has to get in.


In Robert Parker’s hidden office, a battered green text and the wreckage around it make knowledge look less like inheritance than recovered contraband.

That is what the ending changes and sharpens. It redefines the novel from a story about whether Briar belongs at Temple into a story about whether Temple should ever have had the right to exist in its current form. It redefines magic from rare inheritance into stolen common possibility. It even redefines the romance. Briar and Bastian do not arrive at each other as two purified people who have earned uncomplicated happiness. They arrive as damaged survivors trying, awkwardly and against a great deal of evidence, to imagine a life not organized by punishment. The ending does not claim that they are healed. It claims something harder and better: that being compromised does not make them beyond saving.

I do not think the novel is flawless. But I do think it is alive in ways many more polished fantasies are not. It has a real argument, a real pulse and a real willingness to let ugly knowledge stay ugly. It is also, crucially, one of the few books of this sort in recent memory that understands the service side of grandeur – the bins behind the chapel, the dust beneath the ceremony, the administrative hand that makes mystery look effortless. That perspective gives the whole enterprise bite.

I’d place “The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones” at 89 out of 100, which for me is 4 out of 5 stars. That reflects a novel of genuine force and freshness – ambitious, emotionally charged, structurally shrewd, morally riskier than most of its peers – even if its late compression and occasional repetition keep it from the highest rank.

What lingers, finally, is not the spectacle of magic but the politics of access. Not the chosen student in the candlelit hall, but the cleaner in the corridor, close enough to see what keeps the institution shining. The fantasy here is not that power exists. It is that anyone ever had the right to hoard it, polish the bars and call the barrier sacred. This book knows that old orders do not begin to fall when somebody noble inherits them. They begin to fall when the person hired to clear away the rubbish starts reading what was never meant to be found.


On the Norfolk shore, closeness survives as something provisional and wind-battered, held against grief, guilt, and the vast unfinished future.


The first compositional studies test how much threshold, sky, and distance the emblematic image needs before the mood can begin to breathe.


The underdrawing fixes the painting’s emotional geometry – figure, boundary, and school – before color turns suspense into atmosphere.


The first washes let weather, memory, and institutional shadow seep into the paper while much of the image still remains undecided.


These border studies explore how far thorn, tracery, and overgrowth can press inward before ornament starts to suffocate the scene.


The swatch page sets the series’ weathered grammar of moss, stone, sepia, and bruised light – wonder drained of glamour but not of charge.

All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.

[Lucky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting from start to finish, The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones is an incisive and potent exploration of a ruthless system, its intergenerational toll, and those that choose to defy it.

The image this book paints of a magic school captures all the worst and most seductive horrors that elite institutions embody while also feeling inescapably tangible.

Croucher's skill for balancing banter with vulnerability is also on full display, the supporting cast of queer found family being both complex and charming.

The lake-deep yearning between Briar and Bastian is matched only by their shared angst. They are catastrophically messy—both separately and together— and I never stopped rooting for them.

If you like incisive magical dark academia, funny and complex queer characters, or slow burn romance, please read this book. I gasped, I cried, I nearly broke a mug by gripping it too tightly. I am obsessed.

[BookishKB · Rating 4 out of 5]

🌿✨ The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones ✨🌿

I’ve been craving a magical academy fantasy, so this definitely scratched that itch.

I enjoyed the magic system and the worldbuilding we did get, but I wanted more depth. It felt a bit surface level at times, and I kept wishing for more. I had so many questions.

It also took me a while to like any of the characters. I didn’t really start liking any of the MCs until around the 40 percent mark. This made the first half harder to get into. Once it picked up, I was more invested.

💫 What to Expect
• Dark academia
• Former besties
• Queer fantasy
• Class privilege
• Magical academy
_ _ _

📅 Pub Date: June 9, 2026
Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager and NetGalley for the advanced copy. All thoughts are my own.

[Traci Carson · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 stars.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

This book actually took me a few weeks to get through, but it wasn't because I wasn't enjoying it! I had a blast with this book. It was because I was savoring it, enjoying the characters and the setting and the magic system. There was just enough depth to the worldbuilding here that it felt so lived in, without being overwhelming. I do wish we got more information about the different kinds of magic (or 'Work' as this book calls it) since I think it's all so fascinating, but I'm absolutely obsessed with what we got.

Briar Jones is a mess of a protagonist, and I really loved them by the end. They grew up best friends with Sebastian Wolfe, a friendship that transcended class, since Briar's family is working class and Seb's is extremely rich. They were practically inseparable as kids, and they had a dream of going to Temple University together, a school with a reputation for teaching magic. Of course, it's something of a rumor and a legend at best, because Temple keeps its secrets within its walls, and it's strictly forbidden to talk about it outside of the school and those who've attended it. Nevertheless, Briar and Seb have a dream of attending the school together, but in the end... it's only Sebastian that gets in.

They don't see each other for seven years, and then Briar gets a summer temp job working at Temple as a cleaner. They make some friends there, and they find Seb--now going by Bastian--and find him much different than he used to be. The Seb Briar had known is gone, and in his place is a cold, cruel young man who appears to torture then younger children for fun along with the rest of his upperclassman friends.

The magic system in this book is so interesting. The students have different specialties: Ease, Inquiry, etc. They all do different things, and the more you study a thing, the less that thing will work on you, because you know it so well. Most of these magical specialties are being used by these powerful families to bend the world in their favor after graduation: think world leaders, business moguls, very secret society Illuminati stuff. The kids that go to this school might start out soft, but they get hardened into cruel, terrible people during their time at Temple. It's legitimately like a whole school of Slytherins, and it's absolutely fascinating watching these disaster people ruin each other.

Even Briar's friends, Hadley, Tate, and Westby, are actual disaster humans. They're in general nicer than the rest, but that doesn't really mean much. And yet I still found them all so charming in their own ways. They're the misfits, the outcasts. Queer, or POC, or both. Hadley has it pretty bad because she's a girl, too, and the school is very much a boy's club. I really liked each and every one of these characters, especially Westby. You get to see such a human side to them, and it really helps to see that people are the sum of their parts, not just the outward face they show to others for their own protection.

Seb especially is a victim of this. He had to become hard, cruel, uncaring, in order to survive. He ended up my favorite character in this book by the end, just because I really felt so bad for him. His parents were cruel to him at worst, uncaring to him at best. At school, he was tormented until he became strong enough to become the tormentor, but it isn't something he relished in. He hates it, but he doesn't know anything else. He doesn't see a different way, a way out at all, so he's just decided to go along with it. By the end of the book, though, he's begun to see that things can change, and he doesn't have to suffer or make others suffer anymore. His relationship with Briar, while fraught, is so sweet. I really felt it deeply, it was so well done.

I really recommend this book if you like dark academia, stories with a lot of queer representation, and you can handle characters who are all twisted and fucked up in their own ways. I wish this wasn't a one off, because I really did love the time I spent in this world, with these characters, so much!

[Izzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

idk why but i kept picturing briar as remus lupin and seb as lucius malfoy.

NOTE: before I start my review I want to talk about something that is quite prominent and I believe is not talked about enough. for actual review, please scroll down to REVIEW
As someone who's perception of the world has changed so much in the last decade, I think it's incredibly important to address something that is often overlooked: the concept of LGBTQIA+ representation in books.
The author does a wonderful job with representation in this book. Briar's queerness was more or less accepted by everyone around them, with just enough discomfort to depict the state of society. This reaction was presented as almost an expectation, which is absolutely correct.
I will admit, as a product of much sheltering that continued throughout my teens, this book was not the norm for me, and so it took some adjusting. This is normal; after all, in today's world, we still see a lot of avoidance of topics as such, which makes presentation of these concepts feel almost strange. What isn't normal, though, is just ignoring these topics, as they are indeed a crucial part of someone else's life, and in order to be able to respect humanity, we need to accept our differences. And that begins with stepping out of your comfort zone to read about a protagonist who might be a bit different.
The point I'm trying to make here is that we as a society need to be more immersed in the concept of being different, until being different becomes our normal.

REVIEW:
This book should've been longer.
PLOT: I loved the concept. Heists? Mysteries? Trials? Literally the recipe for my favorite books (tog and soc im looking at you). The plot was certainly interesting, but the ending was so incredibly rushed. Like there were so many slow parts but the author just... Kind of stuck together words and created the shorted resolution known to mankind? 90% of the book was the buildup, 3% was the climax, and the remaining 5% was the ending and how they fixed the climax. (2% was the acknowledgements + the end of books thingies on kindles). So yeah! We needed at least fifty more pages of what they even DID. But the book was funny.

CHARACTERS:
BRIAR: Oh yes. They are so fucking hot... Like competent buff scholar-reject-turned-scholar-mystery??? YES PLEASE. (can you tell i love academia yet never unfortunately experienced my own academia love... gosh darn it shouldve gone to a prep school). Briar was genuinely smart as hell and... did i mention buff yet! And they were such a perfect book partner like oh my god someone tell my future husband to learn a fucking lesson from this wonderful soul. Okay so bottom line, I love Briar.
SEB: I did not like this guy. He was kind of flat, no character arc, and just boring. Briar was too good for him. Seb was honestly just a well-written plot device. Lex Croucher successfully made me hate him, except when the enemies to lovers part was supposed to happen I never ended up liking him. He made terrible decisions and never apologized for half the bullshit he pulled.
The Trio: They deserved more. Their characters deserved more. We should've seen West's mental health arc, seen Hadley's growth as a person (seriously wtf why was that scene so short my girl deserved better), and at LEAST seen what Tate did afterwards. I will say, this is where the normality of LGBTQIA+ really struck me, as their characters did not struggle with it at all, instead fully owning it. The author actually did so fucking well in this regard. I can't put it into words how much I appreciate the way she represented everything. That being said, we deserve a novella about them growing up after this dang book.
THE MILLION OTHER CHARACTERS: Booooring. Besides Eugenia. I love her. And idk if I'm supposed to hate her wife. And Buck is Buck and I hope he suffers a terrible death.

So yeah. Please let there be a second book or at least a novella.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review

guys I'm so sorry it's long I tried!!!!!!!!! read it plssss

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was effing incredible.

How do I put this book into words?

This is magic school for those who are disillusioned by the state of the world and outraged at a certain billionaire author of a different well-known magic school. I'm not saying it's a wonderful dreamland of perfection, to be clear. I'm saying it reflects those feelings, and it's dark. Very dark. The beginning has a bit of a taste of whimsy and the tone throughout is amusing (it even made me laugh out loud a couple of times), but it doesn't take long in the present-day chapters before the horror begins to slowly creep up on you.

This is a book of stunning storytelling. Lex Croucher has such a skill for world-building. They write the kind of descriptions you don't realise are descriptions as you're reading them, because they're so well-woven into the story. I felt like I, too, was creeping through a dark forest or damp tunnels at night, about to happen upon something important. It's the kind of book you can very easily lose yourself in. The kind of book you get so invested and immersed in that you forget time is passing around you (I speak from direct experience). Plus, I kept finding myself thinking about the story when I was doing something entirely unrelated, which is always the sign of a very good book for me.

As the setting is so dark, it follows that everyone here is a little (or a lot) messed up. It's fascinating to see the psychology of multiple characters who are trying to do the right thing in an unjust context, and hence making unpleasant choices in the pursuit of their goals – choices which are also at least partly influenced by PTSD and conditioning.

Briar is non-binary, and they connect with a found family of sorts who are also variously queer. The stand-out relationship, however, is the one between Briar and Seb. I was absolutely living for the moments they collide. Watching them circle around each other, unsure how to approach one another at first, was truly tantalising; they have so much chemistry together. When they do meet, they're all punches and anger and violent intentions, until they are held secrets and tenderness and rapidly re-building trust, and I suppose that's all I'll say on that. They stir my heart and I love them.

I'm not usually one to comment on the spicy scenes much, but I couldn't not here. The spice was very hot, tender when it made sense for the characters, even poetic, and importantly, not a single part of, uh, private anatomy was mentioned. I have absolutely no idea what either Briar or Seb have got going on under the belt, and I don't need to know. Lex Croucher not only proves that it is possible to write spice without describing anatomy, but also that it's possible to do it incredibly well.

For those who are hesitant about darkness and tension in this book, I will say that a happy and satisfying ending is reached, though perhaps not the ending you might be expecting at the beginning of the book. As far as I know this is a standalone and it does wrap up nicely, but god, if Lex Croucher ever blesses us with a sequel I will happily drown in it.

My deepest gratitude to Hachette Australia and Netgalley for a review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

[Y.N. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and Avon & Harper Voyager for the eARC

I had a nice time with this one. Briar Jones is young non binary person, who finally gets the chance to enter the magic school of their dream. As a temporary employee. The Temple, mysterious magical school, has taken Briar's best friend, Seb, seven years prior. Briar is hurt, sad and angry, both hoping and afraid of seeing him. Of course, they do see him. And have the nasty surprise to see that their sweet, shy best friend as because a nasty piece of work, bullying the younger student as one of the stongest scholar for decades.
Briar also somewhat become friends with last years students and start helping them in their endeavour of undermining the group of students responsible for the younger years Trials. Of course, Seb is one of said bully.

"The unmagical life of Briar Jones" is part dark academia, part romance, part... slice of life? Told in third person, present tense, we follow Briar for three weeks as they work in the Temple. The narrative is quite focused on their own biases, the way they perceive themselves, the world, and of course, Seb. Their broken relationship with Seb is a very important part of the book and their confrontations are one of the strongest moments. Stronger than Briar's actions as they follow their new friend group into undermining the Mons/Capes. These moments are nice, but they would have been stronger with another kind of story structure. Similarly, the in-between moments of daily work and inner thoughts can be a little weaker.

I must admit I had to reflect a little once I had finished reading the book. I wasn't so sure what the main driving point was supposed to be and how I should judge the story. As a dark academia, it kinda work but is bit weak, since Briar isn't that much of a active force in driving the story and the actions "against" the Temple. There are some nasty moments with manipulations and misuse of power that were really well done and impactful, though the story isn't that dark if you are used to dark academia and dark fantasy or horror. And then there's the ending, wrapping a little too nicely and quickly for my taste.
As a romance, it falls into the trap of lacking a more gradual transition from opposition to joining forces. The intensity is there, but since part of the story is elsewhere and Briar and Seb don't see each other that often at first, it's a bit rushed once they really get close again.
The found family element is fun. I enjoyed Briar's friends and their issues. They are definitely imperfect, as are Briar and Seb. This side of messy queerness was delightful and mixed well with the elitist and injust magical school and its secrets.

All in all, I enjoyed this. The writing flowed nicely even if I am not a fan of present tense narrative, with an addictive side to the story. As an exploration of lost dreams and lost friends, found love ad struggle, this story works quite well. I will definitely be checking Croucher's next adult novel! And of course, big shoutout for the non binary rep!

[Dotti · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones is a dark academia fantasy novel following a young adult named Briar. Briar and their best friend Sebastian grew up in the shadow of Temple, a prestigious boarding school for magic. When Sebastian got accepted and Briar didn’t, the two drifted apart. Now, eight years later, Briar gets a job at Temple and learns that the school is not the whimsical place they imagined. With a group of new friends, Briar begins to unravel the secrets of Temple and thermalugy for good.

The book was well done, with an excellent focus on the dark academia elements. Briar’s understanding both of themselves and of Sebastian grow throughout the book in compelling ways, reminding us that our childhood selves often are couched in hazy memory. Briar’s friends at Temple, a group of privileged students trying to upend the system, are a layered group; it’s hard to have side characters that feel complex, and Croucher succeeds in that regard.

This story features a queer romance with explicit content as a prominent side plot. The romance storyline is messy and complicated, which fits for a dark academia book. This story does not follow romance tropes or pacing, unlike many of the fantasy books in publishing nowadays.

Briar is a non-binary character and uses they pronouns throughout. The book first treats this as a non-issue, then slowly introduces the complexity of their gender identity. It was a compelling way to experience a non-binary character.

The magic system was a little thin, but as required by the story. Briar is an employee of the school, not a student, and therefore they do not have a typical training arc in which the magic system is explained in depth. Instead, most of Briar’s knowledge comes in fragments, from their own experiences being manipulated to the drunken ramblings of their new friends.

The overall mystery regarding the school was a major element, and often questioned within the story. The answer seemed relatively obvious to me, but I was pleasantly surprised by the detail that our author gave in explaining the conspiracy and its various elements.

Altogether, this was a solid dark academia fantasy novel involving class, gender and sometimes race. The mystery was compelling, and the characters were all well developed. If you’re a fan of dark academia novels and want a side of a (somewhat toxic) romance, this story is for you.

I will note, the cover with the heron, plus bright yellow color and title, made me believe this book would be much lighter than the description implied. The title implies a sort of whimsy, as does the bird. In some senses, it feels accurate; Briar believes that Temple is a magical place full of whimsy and uncovers the seedy nature of the school. But, for casual readers, these elements might imply a more positive book than the one they experience.

This advanced reader copy was provided by Harper Voyager in exchange for my review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Meg Paff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Hachette ANZ for this ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.

I ended up giving this one 4 stars overall. Once the plot found its footing, I was completely hooked.

“‘There’s always a dungeon. It’s got chains on the walls. And there’s a vampire in it without his shirt on.’ ‘Stop reading your mum’s weird books.’ “

Parts of the book, especially early on, genuinely made me laugh out loud and immediately show my friends. I really appreciated that balance. Even with some heavier subject matter, it still made space for humour in a way that felt natural.

One of my favourite aspects was the queer normative world. It felt so natural and unforced, which made it really easy to settle into the story. The magic system was also really interesting. I liked the idea that you only got as much out of it as you were willing to put in, and how that tied into the broader themes of power.

The story explored power dynamics in a way that felt both familiar and amplified. It reflected real world imbalances but made them far more overt, especially through the lens of magic users existing without real consequences for their actions. That tension came through clearly on both a personal level and within the wider political landscape, which I found really compelling.

I also really enjoyed the academic setting and the premise of the main character not being the chosen one. It was a refreshing shift and worked well with the tone of the story. The friendships were another highlight. I liked the way flawed friendships were explored, and I especially enjoyed the dynamic between West, Hadley and Tate.

Briar was a genuinely flawed main character, which I appreciated, but I did find myself wanting more depth when it came to their emotional journey. Their emotions around their memories about Seb felt a little surface level, and I was craving more introspection and growth in that area. Especially when compared to Seb, whose emotions felt explored in a much more impactful and satisfying way (maybe because he wasn’t the main character and I didn’t expect as much from him?)

Given that the story centres around Briar’s emotional repression, I think I just expected a bit more from them in that regard. There is some shift after the reveal, but it did not quite hit the depth I was hoping for.

Since Eugenia became a bit more relevant to the plot towards the end, I do wish we had learnt just a little more about her. It was not a vital part of the story, just something that would have been nice to have as I found her an interesting character.

Overall, once it picked up, I really enjoyed the ride. It is a strong and thoughtful read with some great ideas, even if it did not fully deliver on the emotional depth I was hoping for

[Heather Pacella · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

As children, Briar Jones and Sebastian Wolfe were thicker than thieves, exploring the local countryside, swapping their favorite paperbacks, and planning their future at the elite Temple School of Thaumaturgy, rumored to be an institute of magic and home to some of the most successful politicians and businessmen in local history. Though the existence of magic is up for question, one thing was certain - no matter where their lives would take them, they would be by each other's side, experiencing it together. However, the unthinkable happens, and legacy Sebastian is granted admission while not-so-privileged Briar is not. Their friendship is irreparably shattered, and what follows is seven years of silence between the two.

While Sebastian has disappeared behind the gates of the Temple, Briar has been stuck at home in their village, attending the mundane local school and helping out on the family farm in their spare time. Even so, Briar has never really given up on magic, and they jump at the opportunity to take a summer job at the Temple. However, when they arrive at the school, nothing is as they imagined. The wondrous "magic" Briar and Sebastian dreamed of as children is much more sinister than they imagined, and sweet, shy Sebastian has transformed into the most feared bully at the school. When Briar falls in with a group of students desperate to change the cruel status quo, they find that the knowledge they've been searching for has a devastating price - one they might not be willing to pay.


I really enjoyed the world built by Lex Croucher in The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones - the magic system created here, as well as how it is taken advantage of and gatekept by the elite, was great. Another strong point for me was the depth of the students that Briar made friends with - Tate, Westby, and Hadley jumped off the page. Briar and Sebastian's trauma - and their attempts to grow past it, together - was also beautifully captured. The only thing I was not a fan of was that this was a standalone - because of that, the story read almost juvenile, and it felt at times that the plot was advanced too quickly in implausible ways (especially the ending, when everything was suddenly neatly wrapped up with a shiny bow on top). I would have loved to see this world expanded upon even more, as I felt there was still a lot left to explore. However, I would still highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a book with a unique take on dark academia and strong non-binary/queer representation.

Thank you to NetGalley, Avon, and Harper Voyager for this ARC!