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Sibylline #2
Diviner
Not yet published
Expected 2 Feb 27A curse befalls the magical ivy league in this YA dark academia romantasy, the sequel to Sibylline by #1 New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz.
After the near collapse of Sibylline—the crown jewel of the magical ivy league—Raven, Atticus, and Dorian return for their second semester as students. They finally have access to the education they’ve wanted all their lives.
But an insidious darkness has wormed itself into the Ivy. It surfaces when a wrathful creature appears on campus, and before long, it devolves into the mysterious disappearance of spellbooks. The spells themselves are vanishing with them, extending far beyond campus and threatening the collapse of the world’s magic system.
Tumult at Sibylline should bring the trio closer together. But Raven pulls away, becoming more and more entangled with a secret society dealing in dangerous arcane arts. With only each other to lean on, Atticus and Dorian must try to restore the world’s magic from inside of Sibylline’s walls—all while fighting to salvage their relationship with the person they love the most.
After the near collapse of Sibylline—the crown jewel of the magical ivy league—Raven, Atticus, and Dorian return for their second semester as students. They finally have access to the education they’ve wanted all their lives.
But an insidious darkness has wormed itself into the Ivy. It surfaces when a wrathful creature appears on campus, and before long, it devolves into the mysterious disappearance of spellbooks. The spells themselves are vanishing with them, extending far beyond campus and threatening the collapse of the world’s magic system.
Tumult at Sibylline should bring the trio closer together. But Raven pulls away, becoming more and more entangled with a secret society dealing in dangerous arcane arts. With only each other to lean on, Atticus and Dorian must try to restore the world’s magic from inside of Sibylline’s walls—all while fighting to salvage their relationship with the person they love the most.
- GenresYoung Adult
Kindle Edition
Expected publication February 2, 2027
About the author
Melissa de la Cruz
150 books16.2k followersMelissa de la Cruz is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of many critically acclaimed and award-winning novels for teens including The Au Pairs series, the Blue Bloods series, the Ashleys series, the Angels on Sunset Boulevard series and the semi-autobiographical novel Fresh off the Boat.
Her books for adults include the novel Cat’s Meow, the anthology Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys and the tongue-in-chic handbooks How to Become Famous in Two Weeks or Less and The Fashionista Files: Adventures in Four-inch heels and Faux-Pas.
She has worked as a fashion and beauty editor and has written for many publications including The New York Times, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Allure, The San Francisco Chronicle, McSweeney’s, Teen Vogue, CosmoGirl! and Seventeen. She has also appeared as an expert on fashion, trends and fame for CNN, E! and FoxNews.
Melissa grew up in Manila and moved to San Francisco with her family, where she graduated high school salutatorian from The Convent of the Sacred Heart. She majored in art history and English at Columbia University (and minored in nightclubs and shopping!).
She now divides her time between New York and Los Angeles, where she lives in the Hollywood Hills with her husband and daughter.
Her books for adults include the novel Cat’s Meow, the anthology Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys and the tongue-in-chic handbooks How to Become Famous in Two Weeks or Less and The Fashionista Files: Adventures in Four-inch heels and Faux-Pas.
She has worked as a fashion and beauty editor and has written for many publications including The New York Times, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Allure, The San Francisco Chronicle, McSweeney’s, Teen Vogue, CosmoGirl! and Seventeen. She has also appeared as an expert on fashion, trends and fame for CNN, E! and FoxNews.
Melissa grew up in Manila and moved to San Francisco with her family, where she graduated high school salutatorian from The Convent of the Sacred Heart. She majored in art history and English at Columbia University (and minored in nightclubs and shopping!).
She now divides her time between New York and Los Angeles, where she lives in the Hollywood Hills with her husband and daughter.
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Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
After enjoying the magical university setting and mystery plot in Sibylline, but disliking the explicit polyamorous relationship that should not have been present in a YA novel, I hesitantly decided to read this sequel. My general assessment of the series is this: if you liked Sibylline, you will probably like Diviner too. But if you disliked Sibylline, then you will probably not enjoy its sequel either.
This book is told in three first-person POVs: that of Dorian, Atticus, and Raven. I generally like multi-POV stories, except all of the character voices sounded the same in this one, which made it hard to differentiate the characters. I frequently got confused whose perspective I was reading from. This is indicative of poor writing, and I think this book would have benefitted most from a third-person POV instead. I did originally like the characters’ personalities though, even though they’re each very flawed and kind of a mess, but the more the story progressed, the more I started to dislike everyone, especially Raven.
One thing I noticed while reading this book that I didn’t notice in Sibylline was there were many moments where the writing pulled me out of the story, in a negative way. I can’t count how many times I paused to reread a sentence and thought, “Why was it worded this way? That sounds so unnatural and clunky.” The writing just honestly felt very amateurish in this novel, which is unfortunate as this author has many books under her belt. I will add that I did read an ARC, but these aren’t the kinds of errors that seem like they’re going to be changed in the finished copy since whole paragraphs and scenes would need to be reworded.
I had a problem with the explicit threesome sex scenes being present in the first book when this series is published as YA, and I’m surprised that while Diviner is rife with sexual innuendos and euphemisms, the explicit sex is not present like it was in Sibylline. Which is honestly a strange choice because the people who didn’t like the first book because of it aren’t even going to read the sequel, and the people who didn’t mind it in the first book wouldn’t mind it in the sequel either. It’s like the author tried to actually write a YA book this time with how young the characters feel, except this book features the added bonus of cheating, which I hate. Atticus, Dorian, and Raven all act much younger than they are, and it was kind of jarring to read about these adults alluding to their “adult” activities was also reading as if they’re just beginning puberty instead of old enough to be at university.
The general commentary surrounding their “relationship” really bothered me. The three main characters explicitly state that they are not exclusive to each other nor official with each other, yet still all fool around together (was it even cheating then when one of them gets involved with someone outside their trio?). They keep secrets from and lie to each other too. This is not modeling a healthy relationship for teens and should not be included as an admirable standard in stories written for teens. Also this book—and this duology as a whole—has taught me that I do not like to read about polyamory, threesomes, harems, or anything else that involves more than two people having a sexual relationship with each other; I definitely prefer committed monogamy when it comes to romance.
As for the fantasy plot—that I did enjoy, mostly. It started out strong when a revenant showed up at the university one day, a sort of undead corpse that attempted to attack some students. The plot then becomes an investigation into where the revenant came from and why the magic of the school may be disappearing. I thought this was cool in the beginning until Raven’s character development kind of ruined everything, and then the plot fell off a cliff at the end. And surprisingly, so did the romance.
I honestly think the people who liked the plot in the first book will be disappointed with the ending of this book, and the people who liked the romance in the first book will also be disappointed with the ending of this book. I’m not sure what happened, but everything sadly went downhill around the 70% mark.
Overall, I’m glad I read this sequel and thus finished out the duology, but this isn’t a series I would recommend. While the magical elements and fantastical setting are neat, the romance vastly overshadows the rest of the story in Sibylline, and then the plot and romance both feel lackluster and disappointing in Diviner. This series isn’t necessarily bad, but it doesn’t have a clear audience, which makes it feel out of place to all audiences: the writing and character voices feel very young, but the characters’ romance scenes belong in adult novels. The plot is strong until it isn’t, and it feels like the author was trying to appease readers of erotic romance, romantasy, contemporary fantasy, paranormal fantasy, dark academia, mystery, young adult, and adult novels, and in reality ended up appeasing no one because the book was not strong enough in any one of those elements.
I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher via Edelweiss.
This book is told in three first-person POVs: that of Dorian, Atticus, and Raven. I generally like multi-POV stories, except all of the character voices sounded the same in this one, which made it hard to differentiate the characters. I frequently got confused whose perspective I was reading from. This is indicative of poor writing, and I think this book would have benefitted most from a third-person POV instead. I did originally like the characters’ personalities though, even though they’re each very flawed and kind of a mess, but the more the story progressed, the more I started to dislike everyone, especially Raven.
One thing I noticed while reading this book that I didn’t notice in Sibylline was there were many moments where the writing pulled me out of the story, in a negative way. I can’t count how many times I paused to reread a sentence and thought, “Why was it worded this way? That sounds so unnatural and clunky.” The writing just honestly felt very amateurish in this novel, which is unfortunate as this author has many books under her belt. I will add that I did read an ARC, but these aren’t the kinds of errors that seem like they’re going to be changed in the finished copy since whole paragraphs and scenes would need to be reworded.
I had a problem with the explicit threesome sex scenes being present in the first book when this series is published as YA, and I’m surprised that while Diviner is rife with sexual innuendos and euphemisms, the explicit sex is not present like it was in Sibylline. Which is honestly a strange choice because the people who didn’t like the first book because of it aren’t even going to read the sequel, and the people who didn’t mind it in the first book wouldn’t mind it in the sequel either. It’s like the author tried to actually write a YA book this time with how young the characters feel, except this book features the added bonus of cheating, which I hate. Atticus, Dorian, and Raven all act much younger than they are, and it was kind of jarring to read about these adults alluding to their “adult” activities was also reading as if they’re just beginning puberty instead of old enough to be at university.
The general commentary surrounding their “relationship” really bothered me. The three main characters explicitly state that they are not exclusive to each other nor official with each other, yet still all fool around together (was it even cheating then when one of them gets involved with someone outside their trio?). They keep secrets from and lie to each other too. This is not modeling a healthy relationship for teens and should not be included as an admirable standard in stories written for teens. Also this book—and this duology as a whole—has taught me that I do not like to read about polyamory, threesomes, harems, or anything else that involves more than two people having a sexual relationship with each other; I definitely prefer committed monogamy when it comes to romance.
As for the fantasy plot—that I did enjoy, mostly. It started out strong when a revenant showed up at the university one day, a sort of undead corpse that attempted to attack some students. The plot then becomes an investigation into where the revenant came from and why the magic of the school may be disappearing. I thought this was cool in the beginning until Raven’s character development kind of ruined everything, and then the plot fell off a cliff at the end. And surprisingly, so did the romance.
I honestly think the people who liked the plot in the first book will be disappointed with the ending of this book, and the people who liked the romance in the first book will also be disappointed with the ending of this book. I’m not sure what happened, but everything sadly went downhill around the 70% mark.
Overall, I’m glad I read this sequel and thus finished out the duology, but this isn’t a series I would recommend. While the magical elements and fantastical setting are neat, the romance vastly overshadows the rest of the story in Sibylline, and then the plot and romance both feel lackluster and disappointing in Diviner. This series isn’t necessarily bad, but it doesn’t have a clear audience, which makes it feel out of place to all audiences: the writing and character voices feel very young, but the characters’ romance scenes belong in adult novels. The plot is strong until it isn’t, and it feels like the author was trying to appease readers of erotic romance, romantasy, contemporary fantasy, paranormal fantasy, dark academia, mystery, young adult, and adult novels, and in reality ended up appeasing no one because the book was not strong enough in any one of those elements.
I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher via Edelweiss.
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