Every decade 6 of the world's top magicians are chosen to join a secret society that has access to the Library of Alexandria. Only 5 will make it through to their second year of study.
The (small) romance portion didn't pan out the way I expected, which was nice. The most annoying part for me was there was a whole lot of plot suddenly vomited out in the last 20% (which I didn't really care about?) and ends on a cliffhanger as a set up for the next book.
Otherwise I enjoyed this one. Although the whole secret society thing as a concept seemed iffy, considering most of them are kind of bad/selfish people, and they'll go on to assume leadership positions across the world with the knowledge and skills they gain. Random thought that I had while reading - the fact that 3 women and 3 men were chosen is great but doesn't feel realistic when you think about the gender ratios of positions of power in the world today and idk if that needed to be addressed? Or I guess magic causes a true meritocracy (but then again this is a fantasy book so maybe I shouldn't complain about realism when there's magic involved).