The Dissertation: A Stoneyard Novel

by Jennifer Darden, Paul Curry (Illustrator)

British Literature student Lia Ames travels to a small town in Lincolnshire to flee a scandal and to research for her dissertation on Oscar Wilde. She befriends a young innkeeper, who promises to help her. This is great news, because Lia's snide mentor, her snarky kid brother, and the kooky town librarian all seem determined to make her life as difficult as possible. To further complicate matters, Lia stumbles onto a real-life, working grimoire. As she and the innkeeper experiment with the spells inside, they begin to suspect that the spell book may provide the key to proving Lia's thesis. Unfortunately, it appears that the book's previous owner is quite determined to get it back. As new enemies begin to emerge from the woodwork, Lia's dissertation becomes the least of her troubles.

609 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 1, 2021

Reviews

[Jaide Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fun-filled ride with many lovable characters. The book seems to be written by a person who already studies spellwork or at least does enough research to convince me of it.
My favorite line in the entire book is, "A history book! Well, why didn’t you say so? History won’t be on the 'Nonfiction' floor, oh, no! History bears the bias of the one recalling it, and therefore deserves a floor of its own. That’s the fourth floor, between 'Fiction' and 'Nonfiction '." This tidbit was spoken by my favorite character, Archimedes Fletcher. I hope more characters like this pop up in Jenny's future works.

[Paul Curry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jennifer does a magnificent job of blending in real life references in her novel. The pacing is wonderful and shows an ease of storytelling.

I really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to the next installments!