Synopsis:

Aurelia Schwartz has spent twenty-three years maintaining the equilibrium between her carefully curated human life and the magical one that she endures in secret. With a devoted best friend and top marks at a prestigious university, she has everything one could possibly want neatly within her grasp.

Except, her gift of green magic has begun to fade, and if that wasn’t enough to upset the balance of her life, a fateful run-in with another power-hungry witch with a penchant for stolen magic has threatened to bring it all to ruin.

Cast into an unexpected alliance with her dreadfully arrogant classmate, Aurelia goes into hiding among a peculiar family of witches, where she discovers that the secret to their safety requires breaking rules she has followed all her life:
Make no promises,
Tell no one what you are,
and
Never stay the night.

Review:

If you are after an (academic) rivals to lovers done well, then this is the book for you!
We follow Aurelia Schwartz, a witch with a green thumb who is attending the prestigious Cambridge University. Her classmate and academic rival is Theodore Ingram, but the pair are forced to help each other when another witch murders their mutual friend.

Both Aurelia and Teddy are great characters. Aurelia is spiky and stubborn, and it was great to follow her as she had to reframe her perspectives on many things. Teddy is somewhat of a typical brooding love interest, but we do find there is a lot more depth to him than that as we read.

This is very much a character book, and as such there isn’t a huge amount of plot – so be warned if you need a good plot! At its core, our two characters are in hiding, and that is what the majority of the story revolves around. There are a lot of conversations, meandering and wandering around a surprisingly cosy and cute little village. Throughout this, we have the slow burn, and boy is it slow. The pair poke and prod at each other, annoy each other, and eventually, maybe they like each other just a bit.

The climax of the story felt a little rushed and overly dramatic. The villain felt a bit like a caricature with very thin motivations. I was also left with a number of questions. However, I know there will be a book two, so hopefully, they will be answered!

The one thing I can’t decide how I feel about is the prose. Parts are beautiful and lyrical, and parts felt overwritten. Overall the book has excellent atmosphere and I loved the vibes (vibe reader only over here), but I did sometimes have to reread sentences to get some clarity.

All in all, I had a really good time with this book and I am definitely going to pick up the second! If you enjoy a steady pace with a good helping of longing then you might just love it! A final caveat – I would not classify this as dark academia, as after the first 20% the setting is no longer at university (and to be honest they were barely there anyway).

Thank you so much to @bookbreakuk for sending this over!