What should you do when you’ve acci­den­tal­ly con­jured your hith­er­to-fake demon boyfriend? Han­nah Reynolds’s newest young adult fan­ta­sy nov­el drops read­ers into pro­tag­o­nist Naomi’s predica­ment imme­di­ate­ly. A new stu­dent at the Lyceum, a mag­i­cal col­lege based in the bustling city of Talum, Nao­mi is strug­gling to fend off suit­ors who pur­sue her because of her aunt’s high posi­tion in the gov­ern­ing body, the San­hedrin. Grow­ing frus­trat­ed with this feigned inter­est that feels bla­tant­ly trans­ac­tion­al, Nao­mi claims to already be betrothed to Daziel — a demon, or shed­im as they pre­fer to be called.

As Daziel and Nao­mi come to a mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial agree­ment to be room­mates — which gives Nao­mi pro­tec­tion from roman­tic advances, and Daziel the chance to explore a new place — their friend­ship blos­soms. Through wit­ty ban­ter, a shared delight in the new­ness of the city, and a sense of final­ly being under­stood, read­ers watch the rela­tion­ship evolve nat­u­ral­ly and with care. In addi­tion, Reynolds crafts a cast of well-round­ed fel­low stu­dents who illu­mi­nate oth­er parts of the world, includ­ing var­i­ous pro­fes­sions, fam­i­ly back­grounds, and socioe­co­nom­ic con­di­tions in the world.

The vibrant city of Talum and its sur­round­ing towns are col­or­ful­ly and thought­ful­ly drawn, and utter­ly steeped in Jew­ish folk­lore. Daziel and Naomi’s friend­ship tests the lim­its of people’s bias towards shed­im in this world and they find that for some city-dwellers there is prej­u­dice to over­come and deep-seat­ed mistrust.

Nao­mi per­ceives her­self as an out­sider, hav­ing moved to Talum from the coun­try­side, and she is keen­ly aware of eco­nom­ic dif­fer­ences and her own sense of alien­ation from some of the oth­er stu­dents. Her atten­dance at the Lyceum to study lan­guages is depen­dent on a schol­ar­ship, and the ten­sion of need­ing to per­form excep­tion­al­ly in order to return next year runs through­out the novel. 

As the semes­ter con­tin­ues with Daziel increas­ing­ly entrenched in Naomi’s life, the mag­ic of the world seems more and more out of bal­ance. With vivid sen­so­r­i­al descrip­tions, the read­er sees how the wind and weath­er sys­tems that gov­ern life in Talum and across the con­ti­nents are becom­ing unpre­dictable, and the stu­dents’ grow­ing unease at how their fam­i­lies — and indeed their world — can sur­vive these envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phes lurk beneath con­ge­nial sports games and out­ings to the pub. At the heart of Naomi’s work is the project she’s work­ing on to unrav­el an alpha­bet and the mean­ing behind ancient scroll frag­ments, a lin­guis­tic mys­tery that Reynolds imbues with high stakes.

As the old­est of sev­er­al sib­lings, Nao­mi is accus­tomed to met­ing out sup­port but sel­dom receiv­ing it. As her work on a mys­te­ri­ous set of scroll frag­ments unfolds, and mag­i­cal mys­ter­ies abound, she must push her­self to con­fide in oth­ers and allow them to help. It is only through team­work that she and her fel­low stu­dents are able to tack­le mon­u­men­tal issues and begin to under­stand the secrets that thrum at the heart of their world and folk­lore — and Nao­mi can under­stand the con­nec­tion between her and Daziel. Indeed, the mem­bers of the San­hedrin and oth­er adults are unable to pri­or­i­tize or act in the face of these calami­ties, and it is the young stu­dents who take on the bur­den of sav­ing their world.