Edward Wozny, a hot-shot young banker, is sent to help one of his firm's most important and mysterious clients. When asked to un-crate and organise a personal library of rare books, Edward's indignation turns to intrigue as he realises that among the volumes there may be hidden a medieval codex, a treasure kept sealed away for many years.

Quentin Coldwater's life is changed forever by an apparently chance encounter: when he turns up for his entrance interview to Princeton he finds his interviewer dead - but a strange envelope bearing Quentin's name leads him down a very different path to any he'd ever imagined.

Quentin Coldwater has lost everything. He has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams that he once ruled. Everything he had fought so hard for, not to mention his closest friends, is sealed away in a land Quentin may never again visit. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can't hide from his past, and it's not long before it comes looking for him.