Writ magic is the illegal power to compel another person, and nobody at Newlyn University is supposed to study it. S. D. Coverly sends a student and her adviser after it.
Readical Key Points
- Dark academia fantasy built on a romance between a student and her thesis adviser
- Content note: includes sexual content. The publisher calls it a "sexy dark romance"; Publishers Weekly calls it "half erotica"
- S. D. Coverly is the pen name of co-authors Dana Schwartz and Dan Frey; their first novel together
- Hardcover from Del Rey, published May 19, 2026, 400 pages; reviewed in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews
Ellsbeth Storer has long been set on the arcane arts, and a mysterious death brings her to Newlyn. Thaddeus Rawlins was the prodigy of the field until a tragedy nearly ended his career; he has settled into tenure. Ellsbeth asks him to oversee a thesis on writ magic, the outlawed art of compelling others, which is also his secret obsession. The research is illicit from the start, and the flirtation beside it does not stay harmless.
The Del Rey hardcover suits readers of dark academia, the label People gives it, and readers of dark romance whose forbidden element is the field of study itself, which is how the publisher frames it. Both leads are described as masters of manipulation, and the publisher's question is whether two such people can trust each other. Writ magic compels. Trust is the one thing here it cannot produce.
About the Authors
S. D. Coverly is the shared pen name of Dana Schwartz, whose novels include Anatomy: A Love Story and Immortality: A Love Story, and Dan Frey, author of The Future Is Yours and Dreambound. The Arcane Arts is their first book together.
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