The Golden Enclaves: A Novel

by Naomi Novik

Overview

Saving the world is a test no school of magic can prepare you for in the triumphant conclusion to the New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate.

The one thing you never talk about while you’re in the Scholomance is what you’ll do when you get out. Not even the richest enclaver would tempt fate that way. But it’s all we dream about: the hideously slim chance we’ll survive to make it out the gates and improbably find ourselves with a life ahead of us, a life outside the Scholomance halls.

And now the impossible dream has come true. I’m out, we’re all out—and I didn’t even have to turn into a monstrous dark witch to make it happen. So much for my great-grandmother’s prophecy of doom and destruction. I didn’t kill enclavers, I saved them. Me and Orion and our allies. Our graduation plan worked to perfection: We saved everyone and made the world safe for all wizards and brought peace and harmony to all the enclaves everywhere.

Ha, only joking! Actually, it’s gone all wrong. Someone else has picked up the project of destroying enclaves in my stead, and probably everyone we saved is about to get killed in the brewing enclave war. And the first thing I’ve got to do now, having miraculously gotten out of the Scholomance, is turn straight around and find a way back in.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593158364
Publisher:	Random House Worlds
Publication date:	09/27/2022
Series:	Scholomance Series , #3
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	NOOK Book
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	8,715

About the Author

Naomi Novik is the New York Times bestselling author of A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate, the award-winning novels Uprooted and Spinning Silver, and the Temeraire series. She is a founder of the Organization for Transformative Works and the Archive of Our Own. She lives in New York City with her family and six computers.

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/25/2022

Novik dazzles in her brilliant and compulsively readable final Scholomance fantasy, which picks up immediately after the events of The Last Graduate. Galadriel “El” Higgins has successfully trapped 92% of all wizard-hunting monsters, or mals, in the magical boarding school Scholomance, now her alma mater, and led her fellow students to safety—all except for her enemy turned true love, Orion Lake. El’s desperate attempts to save Orion from a fate worse than death in the belly of the same “maw-mouth” monster that ate her father can’t succeed unless she gets power from the enclaves, groups of privileged wizards living in protective pocket universes. However, several enclaves have mysteriously vanished into the void, the powerful London enclave is under attack, and the New York and Shanghai enclaves are on the brink of war. To save Orion, El and her classmates must first save the world they have struggled so hard to rejoin and a future threatened by dangers built into the foundations of the enclaves themselves. This exquisitely well-crafted work engages deeply with genre classics like the Lord of the Rings and The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas while offering up its own detailed and original world full of clever parallels and a fascinating magical catch-22. Novik beautifully closes out El’s and Orion’s character arcs, paying off on groundwork laid in previous installments, and her focus on hope, resilience, and collective action makes this finale as moving as it is satisfying. This is a knockout. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for A Deadly Education

“A gorgeous book about monsters and monstrousness, chockablock with action, cleverness, and wit . . . Naomi Novik deliciously undoes expectations about magic schools, destined heroes, and family legacies.”—Holly Black, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Eyeball-meltingly brilliant . . . Novik is, quite simply, a genius.”—Kiersten White, New York Times bestselling author of And I Darken

“The Scholomance is the dark school of magic I’ve been waiting for, and its wise, witty, and monstrous heroine is one I’d happily follow anywhere—even into a school full of monsters.”—Katherine Arden, New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale

“Novik skillfully combines sharp humor with layers of imagination to build a fantasy that delights on every level. I loved this brilliant book.”—Stephanie Garber, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Caraval series

“Novik puts a refreshingly dark, adult spin on the magical boarding school. . . . A must-read for fantasy fans.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Praise for The Last Graduate

“The climactic graduation-day battle will bring cheers, tears, and gasps as the second of the
Scholomance trilogy closes with a breathtaking cliff-hanger.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Sardonic students, gruesome monsters, growing friendships, and a touch of romance create a highly readable story. . . . Book three can’t come fast enough.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series, about kids at a preposterously deadly magical school, stands out in a ridiculously crowded field. Its sheer viciousness, its grim humor, and its complicated interpersonal politics are an immediate draw.”—Polygon

“Truly one of the best fantasy series out there right now, and it’s not close.”—Culturess

From the Publisher

★ 07/29/2022

By the time of the final installment in Novik's trilogy (after A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate), protagonist El has accomplished what every student of the Scholomance school of magic hopes for: she survived graduation. Not only that, but she was able to keep most of the student body alive, destroy many of the monsters that hunt them, and basically close down the school forever. Back in the real world, however, El must face both her dark destiny of destroying the enclaves and the loss of Orion. With a quest to retrieve her love from the Scholomance, a brewing enclave war, and a destructive destiny to head off, El discovers that the enclaves may be the foundation of their magical world, but the truth of how they are built reveals that the worst monsters of the world may be themselves. Good thing El already knows that—and she is willing to fight. Novik continues to expand the foundational magical system and world in surprising ways, providing fast, exciting action and heart-wrenching emotional arcs for El. VERDICT Novik's third "Scholomance" book is a strong and satisfying finish to an exciting fantasy series.—Kristi Chadwick

Library Journal