Title: Higher Magic  
Author: Courtney Floyd       
Genre: Romance, fantasy
Rating: DNF

First-generation graduate student Dorothe Bartleby has one last chance to pass the Magic program’s qualifying exam after freezing with anxiety during her first attempt. If she fails to demonstrate that magic in classic literature changed the world, she’ll be kicked out of the university. And now her advisor insists she reframe her entire dissertation using Digimancy. While mages have found a way to combine computers and magic, Bartleby’s fated to never make it work.

This time is no exception. Her revised working goes horribly wrong, creating a talking skull named Anne that narrates Bartleby’s inner thoughts—even the most embarrassing ones—like she’s a heroine in a Jane Austen novel. Out of her depth, she recruits James, an unfairly attractive mage candidate, to help her stop Anne’s glitches in time for her exam.

Instead, Anne leads them to a shocking and dangerous discovery: Magic students who seek disability accommodations are disappearing—quite literally. When the administration fails to act, Bartleby must learn to trust her own knowledge and skills. Otherwise, she risks losing both the missing students and her future as a mage, permanently.

I DNFed this pretty early on, as I found the MC very annoying and the opening just felt very slow. I’m also never a fan of books where the author tries to force feed the reader their own personal beliefs, so that didn’t make me want to continue reading either. Beautiful cover, though.

Courtney Floyd is from New Mexico. Higher Magic is her debut fantasy novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin Trade Publishing | MIRA in exchange for an honest review.)

• books