How do we survive each other, resist the demons or easy escape to a deadly realm that could destroy us? How do we conjure a path to the world we want? Lesley Wheeler says, ask the poets and the painters! – Andrea Hairston, author of Will do Magic For Small Change & The Master of Poisons The English Department is a tiny realm, fighting other more powerful realms at the University that would swallow any beleaguered humanities discipline.

She’s perimenopausal and coming into her blood-magic, witch woman power. Cynthia has recently become English Department Chair. Portals lead to demons and horror and death too.

Professors offer portals to undiscovered countries and enchanted lands. Like all universities, this one is a school for wizards and conjurers. Lesley Wheeler’s Unbecoming is a delightful, beautifully written 21 st century gothic novel set at a Virginia university and also in the borderlands between the literal and the metaphorical, between the realistic and the fantastic. – Emily Croy Barker, author of The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic This smart, beguiling debut fantasy casts a spell that readers won’t want to break. Lesley Wheeler’s writing is so deft and magical that I’m convinced that she must have learned it from the fairies. The story of a woman leading an ordinary life who discovers within herself extraordinary powers, UNBECOMING is sage, funny, and warm, like a long conversation with your best friend about all the strange and wonderful things that have been happening to her lately.

Unbecoming by Lesley Wheeler