It starts with a class in an old movie theatre.

Folklore 517: Local Legends and Urban Myths, taught by a woman called the Professor.

Most students believe the Professor's stories are just fiction. There isn't a man in Hollywood who you can call to find out the time you'll die. There's not a haunted hotel bar in Los Angeles that the devil likes to frequent. There's no such thing as magic.

But . . . most students don't have the same tragic past as Holland St. James.

Now a graduate student, Holland is hoping to use her thesis to rewrite her past by proving that some of the most infamous deaths in old Hollywood were actually murders committed by the devil. She has no idea that this quest will lead her into a deadly world of century-old secrets and unimaginable lies and onto the path of two very dangerous men, both of whom are willing to do whatever it takes to find a magic that will either forever alter Holland's life or completely destroy it.

Alchemy of Secrets is the first adult novel from global fantasy phenomenon Stephanie Garber, the multimillion-copy bestselling author of the Caraval and Once Upon a Broken Heart series.

• Number of pages: 400 pages
• Book cover: Trade Paperback