The Summer War

By Naomi Novik

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - In this poignant, heartfelt novella from the New York Times bestselling author of Spinning Silver and the Scholomance trilogy, a young witch who has inadvertently cursed her brother to live a life without love must find a way to undo her spell.

Celia discovered her talent for magic on the day her beloved oldest brother, Argent, left home. Furious at him for abandoning her in a war-torn land, she lashed out, not realizing her childish, angry words would become imbued with the power of prophecy, dooming him to a life without love.

While Argent wanders the world, forced to seek only fame and glory instead of the love and belonging he truly desires, Celia attempts to undo the curse she placed on him. Yet even as she grows from a girl to a woman, she cannot find the solution--until she learns the truth about the centuries-old war between her own people and the summerlings, immortal beings who hold a relentless grudge against their mortal neighbors.

Now, with the aid of her unwanted middle brother, Celia may be able to both undo her eldest brother's curse and heal the lands so long torn apart by the Summer War.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0593984706
• ISBN13: 9780593984703
• Release Date: September 2025
• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.8" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Loved it!

The only bad thing I can say about this, is that I wish it could have been longer!!!! Naomi Novik weaves magic into her stories and I have loved everything she has written. This is a perfect story, with all the emotions, plenty of sword fights and an adventuring knight on a quest, a curse that needs to be broken, siblings hurt by a neglectful father learning to rely on each other instead, and a wrong made long ago that needs to be righted, hopefully without any more victims taken in revenge for that past hurt. It is amazing, how even in a novella, the characters are rich and fully formed, from Celia and her search to undo a hastily made curse, to Argent as he goes searching for a way to break that curse, and even Roric with his studies and following his mother's steps as a musician of sorts which turns out to be an important key. Sadly, the Summerlings are a bit flat and in a whole novel I am sure they would end up with more facets that fighting and partying (I really would love more stories set in this world!) but they moved the plot along and this was a nice bite sized fantastical story that I gobbled right up! Be it a more developed, longer version of this novella, or anything else, I will happily read all that Naomi Novik writes, and also recommend it to everybody around me! I was so happy to have gotten the chance to read this story!