I admit her characterisation was done extremely well and reading about her was fascinating. Still the word ‘sociopath’ never appears in the text – we just get to know her, the way she views her world, the callous way she thinks and interacts with other people. Still it is definitely a process because, more often than not she behaves like one mean sociopathic b****. If you like her it’s only because she grows on you – after a while. If you are not such a big fan of dark tales as yours truly, steer clear from this one but if you love them it is a novel for you.Īll the darkness seem to be focused on Mara who, time and again, disproves the notion that your main character must be ‘good’ or even likeable. If I had to pick a genre for it hough, I’d choose horror/erotica/fantasy. The Scholomance is a novel hard to categorize so, I imagine, it would be a marketing nightmare. Mind you we are speaking here about a shadowy institution created and led by demons for completely murky purposes. Because Mara is, contrary to Connie, truly gifted in magic and she knows she might possess unique qualities to enter the school and survive long enough to find and rescue her friend. Yes, some people are killed/murdered by other hopefulls even before they are admited to the school. Mara, the main lead, doesn’t want to attend the school at all – she has far more serious problems – but when her close and only friend, Connie, disappears and sends her a card with a plea of help she cannot just shrug her shoulders and forget about it.

The school of magic in this case is a highly secretive and also very dangerous institution which is open to new applicants only one night a year and the race to its entrance is nothing more than another exercise in survival of the fittest/the cleverest/ the most determined. I hope such an intro made you only more curious not less so let me add some details to spice the whole premise even further. Accordingly Scholomance is definitely for adult audience and is as far from Hogwarts as it is actually possible. Yes, the same Lee Smith who specializes in fantasy erotica and is not afraid to put rape and orgy scenes in her novels. It is a book about a young woman who is looking for, and finding, a unique magical school still if that makes you think immediatelly ‘Hogwarts’ and ‘Harry Potter’, please kindly remember that it was penned by R. Connie would do anything to have the magic her best friend was born with. And Mara would do anything anything at all to get Connie, her only friend, back. An inescapable fate for one out of every ten graduates. Still the price of the education is high: anyone who reaches the door of the Scholomance may enter, but the Devil takes every tenth student who tries to leave.Ī hidden school.

For centuries, there has been a legend of a hidden school where magic is taught by the demons who dwell there to anyone who seeks them out.

The Scholomance by R. Lee Smith