Naomi Novik (Uprooted; Spinning Silver) starts her Scholomance series with A Deadly Education, an aptly named novel about a teen wizard in a magic school full of things that would like to kill her. Intricate world-building, a nuanced and diverse cast and a thrilling plot culminate in the kind of pulse-pounding ending that resolves much, but sets up the next installment with unanswered questions and dangers both new and old.
El attends a school suspended in "the void" that's designed to protect magical youth from attacks by maleficaria (mals), but it requires regular feedings in order to keep existing. At the end of every year, this ever-shifting tower twists down one level, dropping the graduating students back into the real world and straight into a pit of hungry monsters, able to lurk there due to a broken automated monster-killing system. Although enrollment in this school has drastically reduced youth death rates, small mals are able to sneak into the upper levels via heating ducts and plumbing, killing a not-insignificant number of students, feeding both themselves and the school.
As a junior, El isn't in immediate danger of graduating, but because of her magical affinity for destruction, she has always been a magnet for mals, so they find her anyway. Privileged and powerful, Orion Lake doesn't have any friends who don't want something from him, so he starts following El around. She's caustic, sarcastic and absolutely unimpressed with his heroics. She's also the only person who treats Orion like a person.
A Deadly Education delivers a heroine working hard to thwart a dark destiny. --Suzanne Krohn, editor, Love in Panels