The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones

By: Lex Croucher

Narrated by: Ellise Chappell

'A wondrous book' JOHN GREEN
'What a wonderful ride' V. E. SCHWAB
'A delicious and diabolical feast' CASEY MCQUISTON
'Funny, devastating, achingly romantic' OLIVIE BLAKE
'The freshest contemporary fantasy I've read in years' LAURA STEVEN
'Wildly creative, very funny, and searingly angry' FREYA MARSKE
'This is dark academia as it should be written' BEA FITZGERALD
'Croucher is a master of the craft' KAT DUNN
'Delicious' THE FANTASY HIVE

From instant New York Times bestseller, Nero Award-shortlisted, TikTok Book of the Year-shortlisted, and YA Book Prize-winning Lex Croucher comes your new dark academia obsession . . .

Briar always dreamed of attending the Temple School of Thaumaturgy, the elite boarding school that's produced the most CEOs and Prime Ministers in history, long rumoured to be magical. Briar's best friend, Sebastian, just wanted them to stay together forever.

When Sebastian gets an acceptance letter and Briar doesn't, their relationship is shattered - until, at eighteen, Briar secures a temp job sorting through the magical junk in Temple's attic, and discovers that quiet, sensitive Sebastian, the boy they once loved more than anything else in the world, has become the villain.

Dark academia meets contemporary fantasy in this timely page-turner about a student who fails to gain admission to the UK's only school of magic but then gets a job there years later and unearths the ugly secrets simmering behind its ancient walls - unmissable for fans of Babel by R.F. Kuang and Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo.

Critic reviews

You'll love living in this novel's brilliantly imagined world. With a quick wit and a big heart, Lex Croucher has written a wondrous book not just about magic and mayhem but also about love and hurt and how we survive it all together

What a wonderful ride. Croucher's blend of light and dark, humor and trauma, is so refreshing, as is their taut, evocative prose. The pages flew by, and I didn't want my time with Briar and Seb and the crew to end

I was physically incapable of putting this book down. The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones has absolutely everything: the institutional rot and villainy of the System; the toxic romance of social mobility and the spires of dark academia; the brilliantly integrated magical system; second-chance yearning at soul-shattering decibels; the sheer bounty of delightful, irreverent dialogue; every perfect Lex Croucher turn of phrase. Funny, devastating, achingly romantic, a hands-down favorite of the year, and maybe ever. The book itself makes it impossible not to intuitively grasp the nature of a so-called Working - I feel dreamy and half in love just thinking about the chance to return to it, even though I know what sinister turns yet await

I literally could not put this book down. The only reason I didn't finish in a single sitting is because I had to stop every other page to savor a particularly good sentence. Briar is one of my new all-time favorite characters, and there's no one I'd trust more to follow into the beautiful, poisonous brambles of a posh magical boarding school. The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones is a delicious and diabolical feast for lovers of dark academia, romantasy, complex queer romance, and that one childhood friend you just can't shake

The freshest contemporary fantasy I've read in years, with a deeply flawed queer found family and incisive commentary on systemic rot-plus sharp humour, power play, and an unexpectedly tender romance. Fans of The Magicians and Ninth House have found their new obsession

This book pulls off the trick of making magic school both wondrously seductive and gut-wrenchingly appalling, thanks to the compelling titular protagonist and, of course, Croucher's incredible gifts for both storytelling and shoving your most tender emotions into a blender and cranking it up to ten. Wildly creative, very funny, and searingly angry, this is a story I will never forget. (Though I wish I could, so that I could have the pleasure of being ruined by it all over again)

Only Lex Croucher could write a book that is so full of wit, yearning, sexual tension, rage, niche cultural references and a powerful dissemination of the elite and the institutions that protect them. Come for the found family and stay for the scathing indictment of privilege - particularly that which forms the backbone of academic institutions. This is dark academia as it should be written