For more than thirty years, the Naxos Academy of Psychic Studies for Colored Girls has been home to Mrs. Emmeline Brooks, a former student who is now the assistant headmistress. For Emmeline, Naxos is more than just a school, it is a promise, a way to prove to the world that untapped magic does indeed exist in every girl who passes through its hushed, overstuffed halls.

But after the death of the school's founder and the arrival of her daughter and husband to take over administrative duties, Emmeline receives a devastating message from her late mentor during a séance: Beware! When she consults her tea leaves, the only prognostication Emmeline trusts, she gets an even more detailed warning. Someone whose name begins with the letter L will bring bad luck, a sex scandal, and death to the school!

Emmeline's fears come true when, one late summer in 1928, a new student arrives. She is caustic, rude, funny, sexy, extremely talented, and refuses to live up to the school's strict standards. And her name is Lula Mae Valentine. She is everything Emmeline feared, and worse. When Lula Mae sets her sights on the lone male teacher at the school, Emmeline makes desperate choices that will lead the future of her school and everything she values down a perilous road toward destruction.