Nice Victorian ladies don’t run off to find legendary lost cities. One trifling little arrest shouldn’t have cost Ellie Mallory her job, but it’s only the latest in a line of injustices facing any educated woman with archaeological ambitions. When Ellie stumbles across the map to a mysterious ancient city, she knows she’s holding her chance to revolutionize Pre-Colombian history. There’s just one teensy complication.

It was just one date. My friend told me I needed more fun in my life, so I reluctantly said yes. Fun wasn’t exactly in my wheelhouse. After watching my own mother’s love life implode time and time again, it’s only natural that I have a few rules to protect myself. Actually, it’s just one rule: avoid relationships with men so I don’t get attached. This guy was just a warm body in a chair. I was here for the basketball game. I was absolutely NOT here for my date. Or the kiss cam. Or the kiss. Or the impromptu evening with the one man who seems bent on throwing my tidy world off of its axis.

For twenty years, Sciona has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry at the University of Magics and Industry. When Sciona finally achieves her ambition and becomes a Highmage, she finds her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues are determined to make her feel unwelcome—and instead of a qualified lab assistant they give her a janitor.

Falling in love is easy. Finding the right guy to spend happily ever after with... that's the hard part. But I have a foolproof plan. I'm taking the tropes that work in romance books and applying them to my love life. Only one bed? Never fails. Caring for someone when they're sick? A classic. Who did this to you? Seals the deal every single time. So long, loneliness. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. But the more I try to force romance, the more feelings naturally progress with the one man who's off limits: Walker Collins, the guy I've had a secret crush on since 7th grade.

It has been 20 years since the end of the war. The dictatorial Augurs, once thought of almost as gods, were overthrown and wiped out during the conflict, their much-feared powers mysteriously failing them. Those who had ruled under them, men and women with a lesser ability known as the Gift, avoided the Augurs' fate only by submitting themselves to the rebellion's Four Tenets.