The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones - A Novel

By: Lex Croucher

Published by HarperCollins Publishers, 2026-06-09

Casey McQuiston meets The Secret History in this unmissable dark academia fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Lex Croucher following former childhood best friends who reunite at magical boarding school after years, only to find themselves enemies on opposite sides of the ugly secrets hidden within the gilded walls.

Welcome to the Temple School of Thaumaturgy...and your newest dark academia obsession.

For as long as they can remember, Briar Jones dreamed of attending the Temple School of Thaumaturgy. Behind its looming ornate gates, the elite boarding school--the place that has produced the most CEOs and Prime Ministers in British history--is whispered to be magical.

Briar's best friend, Sebastian Wolfe, never cared about Temple. He just wanted them to stay together forever.

When, at age eleven, Seb gets an acceptance letter and Briar doesn't, their childhood friendship is shattered. Seb vanishes onto Temple's grounds and Briar resigns themself to a mundane life. But they can't completely forget their yearning for Temple, for the extraordinary, to be one of the chosen in the ivory tower.

Seven years later, a summer job advert appears: a temp position sorting through the junk in Temple's attics. And when Briar takes it, they discover that quiet, sensitive Seb, the boy they once loved more than anything else in the world, has become Bastian: a beautiful, arrogant villain feared by the entire school. And worse, the secrets Temple is hiding might not be so enchanting after all, but darker and far more horrifying than Briar could have ever imagined.