Secret schools are among my favorite tropes. Blackwood is a secret school for actual witchcraft inside a school for the study of witchcraft. The scholarship students (read: misfits and outsiders) aren't quite as lucky to be there as they thought, since they were recruited for the secret school whose multiple hundreds of years old Dean just tried to kill one of them.

Ultimately, this is a love story. (What?!) And that's why I think you should read it. It's everything I told you and nothing you'd expect. Also there's a curse and a very angry chimp. Delightful.