Genre Fiction
![Naomi Novik - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B001IGNGVK.jpg)
The Golden Enclaves: A Novel (The Scholomance)
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • 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.
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Paste, Publishers Weekly
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.
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Paste, Publishers Weekly
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.
Editorial Reviews
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 ridiculou...
"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 ridiculou...
Readers Top Reviews
Random User No. 4
Great book, some progression flaws and a ton of room left in that universe for other series/spinoffs/novels to be written. Characters: I can't think of what to say here. El and her friends are such great characters. Not going to say anything about Orion because I would definitely end up writing spoilers. Plot progression: This book got a lot done, but left a lot of space for a sequel or spinoff. While this book does serve as a reasonable conclusion, it seems very rushed-to-the-end in how it was written when compared to the previous two. I will be sorely disappointed if nothing else is written in the Scholomance universe. The Scholomance deserves a spinoff series for the next generation (and some big catastrophe to progress the plot of course). Liesel deserves a spinoff series for her revenge. Nobody can tell me otherwise. The title: Some dark revelations about enclaves are sure to surprise you in this book. The ebook page title puts this right in front of you then kind of tells you that it's meaningless with the whole "tiktok made me read it". Most people aren't on tiktok and I doubt tiktok paid for that bit of advertising/promotion, so I don't get why it's even there tbh. Plot vs length: While book 1 was just over 300 pages, book 2 had over 900. Book 3 had about the same amount of plot-relevant content as book 2, but it all got jammed into 400 pages. I will admit that book 2 did stretch on a bit, but if the author was trying to keep the books short, she could have easily made this one into two books.
nlondonhousewifeR
If you haven't read the first two books, don't start here! If you have, then this is all and more that you were looking for from the author. Each one of these books comes to a decent conclusion. They leave you looking for more but don't finish unnaturally. The conclusion to book 2 may be heartbreaking, but it would be a decent enough place to leave the audience. So you come to this book, wondering how it can satisfy the painful ending of its predecessor, building on the story of the first and second, yet still remain a decent book in itself. It meets and exceeds your expectations, bringing a sense of completion to the world building, answering questions that you didn't realise you had until the answers were provided. It turns things on their head and leaves you in a world where the villains are all too believable, their crimes both too horrifying and yet too mundane. It is a really good tale, written well and moving at a fast pace. The female leads stands strong in the centre, and unlike many of these stories, isn't made smaller by the conclusion, by her friends or the romance element. It's a brilliant book in a brilliant series.
R Cullennlondonho
Books 1 and 2 were all about the most dangerous school in the universe and how to survive it. This book is about what happens if you do survive; where you go next, and why things were the way they were. All the questions that the characters didn't have time to think about because they were fighting for their lives get addressed in this book - if you've read the first two, this one is essential. Naomi Novik has managed to write a book that is not just an engaging and fun story, but also an acutely observed and timely parable for our global situation. Somehow, she has done this whilst also keeping it a quick and easy read. The sheer skill is astonishing; absolutely hats off. I can't think of a series I've enjoyed more in the last few years. Sometimes a book ends leaving you wanting more; whilst I'd certainly be open to hearing more about this world, I'm not sure it's necessary - this is a full meal, and deeply satisfying. I am going to buy copies for other people, that's how much I liked it. Six stars. Eleven stars. ONE MILLION STARS.
A. ClaughtonR Cul
Naomi Novik completed the Scholmance trilogy with this book and did it in style. The book continues the engrossing writing she uses that juggles the events as they occur for the protagonist El, with history and knowledge of the world around her. The Golden Archives also shows off the strong world building Novik has performed by pulling together threads from the initial two books and uses what has happened there to take the reader in a completely unexpected, but perfectly designed direction. Events that you thought were done and dusted suddenly have new implications as El and the reader learn more. The promises and prophecies the author and characters made were all fulfilled; just not as you expected them to be! Naomi then pulls everything together for a fraught but satisfying conclusion, with a little bit of an epilogue to let you know whats happening after. Anyone who has enjoyed the series to date should love this conclusion. For others, whether you love or detest young adult books, you should definitely give the series a go. Its quirkiness, mix of darkness and light, snarkiness and caring, twists and turns, should enthrall any reader. Well done Naomi Novik!
Alexander McCallA
This review is going to contain some spoilers for the ending of The Last Graduate. But to summarise, yes, buy this book, buy the whole series and consume them. That said, on with the review. So this book once again picks up right where the last one left off, with El being shoved through the gates at graduation by Orion as he turns to face off against the maw mouth Patience. From literally the first sentence I was hooked. Unfortunately I agreed with a friend that I’d hold off on reading it until he’d gotten his copy so, after reading a chapter and a half, I forced myself to lock it in a drawer. And I needed that lock between me and the book as well because just that chapter and a half I had a compulsive need to keep reading. I was interested in seeing how this could be Lesson Three of the Scholomance seeing as the last book ended with it being cheerfully yeeted off into the void. And I wasn’t disappointed. Not only does The Golden Enclaves build upon that ending it builds upon the whole series. It brought to the surface threads that I hadn’t noticed running through all the books and it did it in such a natural ways. I’m going to have to go back and reread the other books, again, because this one will change how I view them. And the twist in this book! I love the twist. I’m obviously not going to spoil what it is but when I worked it out I messaged my friend and expressed my admiration for it with a whole lot of swearing. That’s how you know it’s a good twist. I read a lot of books and the majority of them are good. But even compared to them this one is special. This is a series that I won’t just read, appreciate and forget but one that I will go back to and probably reread at least once a year. Because in the field of publishing as a whole, this really does stand out as a beacon of good writing, good plotting and an interesting world.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1
the yurt
The last thing Orion said to me, the absolute bastard, was El, I love you so much.
And then he shoved me backwards through the gates of the Scholomance and I landed thump on my back in paradise, the soft grassy clearing in Wales that I'd last seen four years ago, ash trees in full green leaf and sunlight dappling through them, and Mum, Mum right there waiting for me. Her arms were full of flowers: poppies, for rest; anemones, for overcoming; moonwort, for forgetfulness; morning glories, for the dawn of a new day. A welcome-home bouquet for a trauma victim, meant to ease horror out of my mind and make room for healing and for rest, and as she reached to help me, I heaved myself up howling, "Orion!" and sent the whole thing scattering before me.
A few months-aeons-ago, while we'd still been in the midst of our frantic obstacle-course runs, an enclaver from Milan had given me a translocation spell in Latin, the rare kind that you can cast on yourself without splitting yourself into bits. The idea was that I'd be able to use it to hop around from one place to another in the graduation hall-all the better to save people like enclavers from Milan, which is why she'd handed me a spell worth five years of mana for free. You couldn't normally use it to go long distances, but time was more or less the same thing as space, and I'd been in the Scholomance ten seconds before. I had the hall visualized as crisp and clear as an architectural drawing, complete with the horrific mass of Patience and the horde of maleficaria behind it, boiling its way towards us. I was placing myself at the gates, right back where I had been when Orion had given me that final shove.
But the spell didn't want to be cast, putting up resistance like warning signs across the way: dead end, road washed out ahead. I forced it through anyway, throwing mana at it, and the casting rebounded in my face and knocked me down like I'd run straight into a concrete wall. So I got back up and tried the exact same spell again, only to get pasted flat a second time.
My head was ringing bells and noise. I crawled back to my feet. Mum was helping me up, but she was also holding me back, saying something to me, trying to slow me down, but I only snarled at her, "Patience was coming right at him!" and her hands were slack, sliding off me with her own remembered horror.
It had already been two minutes since I'd been dumped out; two minutes was forever in the graduation hall, even before I'd packed it full of all the monsters in the world. But the interruption did stop me just banging my head against the gates repeatedly. I spent a moment thinking, and then I tried to use a summoning to get Orion out, instead.
Most people can't summon anything larger or with more willpower than a hair bobble. But the many summoning spells I've unwillingly collected over the years are all intended to bring me one or more hapless screaming victims, presumably to go into the sacrificial pit I've incomprehensibly neglected to set up. I had a dozen varieties, and one of them that let you scry someone through a reflective surface and pull them out.
It's especially effective if you have a gigantic cursed mirror of doom to use. Sadly I'd left mine hanging on the wall of my dorm room. But I ran around the clearing and found a small puddle of water between two tree roots. That wouldn't have been good enough ordinarily, but I had endless mana flowing into me, the supply line from graduation still open. I threw power behind the spell and forced the muddy puddle smooth as glass and staring down at it called, "Orion! Orion Lake! I call you in the-" I took a quick glance up at the first sunlight and sky I'd seen in four years of longing for them, and the only thing I could feel was desperate frustration that it wasn't dawn or noon or midnight or anything helpful, "-waxing hours of the light, to come to me from the dark-shadowed halls, heeding my word alone," which would very likely mean he'd be under a spell of obedience when he got here, but I'd worry about that later, later after he was here-
The spell did go through this time, and the water churned into a cloud of silver-black that slowly and grudgingly served up a ghostly image ...
the yurt
The last thing Orion said to me, the absolute bastard, was El, I love you so much.
And then he shoved me backwards through the gates of the Scholomance and I landed thump on my back in paradise, the soft grassy clearing in Wales that I'd last seen four years ago, ash trees in full green leaf and sunlight dappling through them, and Mum, Mum right there waiting for me. Her arms were full of flowers: poppies, for rest; anemones, for overcoming; moonwort, for forgetfulness; morning glories, for the dawn of a new day. A welcome-home bouquet for a trauma victim, meant to ease horror out of my mind and make room for healing and for rest, and as she reached to help me, I heaved myself up howling, "Orion!" and sent the whole thing scattering before me.
A few months-aeons-ago, while we'd still been in the midst of our frantic obstacle-course runs, an enclaver from Milan had given me a translocation spell in Latin, the rare kind that you can cast on yourself without splitting yourself into bits. The idea was that I'd be able to use it to hop around from one place to another in the graduation hall-all the better to save people like enclavers from Milan, which is why she'd handed me a spell worth five years of mana for free. You couldn't normally use it to go long distances, but time was more or less the same thing as space, and I'd been in the Scholomance ten seconds before. I had the hall visualized as crisp and clear as an architectural drawing, complete with the horrific mass of Patience and the horde of maleficaria behind it, boiling its way towards us. I was placing myself at the gates, right back where I had been when Orion had given me that final shove.
But the spell didn't want to be cast, putting up resistance like warning signs across the way: dead end, road washed out ahead. I forced it through anyway, throwing mana at it, and the casting rebounded in my face and knocked me down like I'd run straight into a concrete wall. So I got back up and tried the exact same spell again, only to get pasted flat a second time.
My head was ringing bells and noise. I crawled back to my feet. Mum was helping me up, but she was also holding me back, saying something to me, trying to slow me down, but I only snarled at her, "Patience was coming right at him!" and her hands were slack, sliding off me with her own remembered horror.
It had already been two minutes since I'd been dumped out; two minutes was forever in the graduation hall, even before I'd packed it full of all the monsters in the world. But the interruption did stop me just banging my head against the gates repeatedly. I spent a moment thinking, and then I tried to use a summoning to get Orion out, instead.
Most people can't summon anything larger or with more willpower than a hair bobble. But the many summoning spells I've unwillingly collected over the years are all intended to bring me one or more hapless screaming victims, presumably to go into the sacrificial pit I've incomprehensibly neglected to set up. I had a dozen varieties, and one of them that let you scry someone through a reflective surface and pull them out.
It's especially effective if you have a gigantic cursed mirror of doom to use. Sadly I'd left mine hanging on the wall of my dorm room. But I ran around the clearing and found a small puddle of water between two tree roots. That wouldn't have been good enough ordinarily, but I had endless mana flowing into me, the supply line from graduation still open. I threw power behind the spell and forced the muddy puddle smooth as glass and staring down at it called, "Orion! Orion Lake! I call you in the-" I took a quick glance up at the first sunlight and sky I'd seen in four years of longing for them, and the only thing I could feel was desperate frustration that it wasn't dawn or noon or midnight or anything helpful, "-waxing hours of the light, to come to me from the dark-shadowed halls, heeding my word alone," which would very likely mean he'd be under a spell of obedience when he got here, but I'd worry about that later, later after he was here-
The spell did go through this time, and the water churned into a cloud of silver-black that slowly and grudgingly served up a ghostly image ...
