Why we’re excited
Elodie Kess is a thirty-eight-year-old village librarian who studies magic but cannot do any. When her gifted brother disappears from an elite magic school, she enrols in disguise to find him and accidentally breaks a curse on a former Dark Lord, who has spent centuries stuck as a cat and may be her best ally.
Ashley Poston writes warm, slightly magical romances such as The Dead Romantics and The Seven Year Slip, and this is her move into full fantasy. It is the first book of a new series. Readers who like cosy romantasy with an older heroine and dry humour should keep it in mind.
On our most-anticipated list since 21 October 2026. See all the most anticipated books →
What to know about Elodie and the Dark Lord
Ashley Poston is a familiar name here: 4 of Ashley Poston’s books have full reviews, averaging 4.3 out of 5. Our highest-rated so far is Sounds Like Love (4.5★); the most recent is The Someday Garden.
From the publisher
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.
Description supplied by the publisher.
We haven’t read Elodie and the Dark Lord yet. When our review goes up, it will replace this page.
