Darkness steals into the very heart of Camelot as Morgana and her puppet queen hatch a sinister plan to murder the king. After hearing this, Arthur says that Merlin may be right this time about this not being a coincidence. That makes for fertile ground to explore gender, to play with what it means to be female, to be female and perform femininity versus being assigned female at birth but not conforming to femininity—dark academia makes space for more fluid gender considerations. It is forbidden to copy anything for publication elsewhere without written permission from the copyright holder. And most memorable of all is the Dalloway Five–five students who all died mysteriously one after another, who some say were witches.

A dark, twisty thriller about a centuries-old, ivy-covered boarding school haunted by its history of witchcraft and two girls dangerously close to digging up the past. this book is very close to my heart because it builds off my lived experiences as someone with psychotic depression, a heavily-stigmatized mental illness that is still poorly understood. I so very much loved the Feverwake duology and I can say I was thoroughly impressed by this novel which was leagues away from their previous work. I was told the book picks up later on and what people mean by that is that some actual plot starts happening around the 70% which is already too late for the book to truly be something worth reading. Essentially, Felicity and Ellis team uI really loved the constant bringing up of mental health in the past and how women who were not understood (even without mental health struggles) were so easily deemed witches and made them pay for it with their lives. A dark, twisty, atmospheric thriller about a centuries-old, ivy-covered boarding school haunted by its history of witchcraft and two girls dangerously close to digging up the past. A Lesson in Vengeance is the only book I've read for a while that fully embodies the fundamentals of what makes dark academia dark academia. Tartt fans will find many references to Tartt and her works in ALIV, and this is something I found rather satisfying. Of course the 2 girls are the only ones that had any build up to their characters so just imagine if their characters were shallow, the background characters were just names on a page.

Without giving away spoilers, is there a scene or character that you’re reallyexcited for readers to experience? Darkly radiant and brilliantly wicked, A Lesson in Vengeance is a sharp dissection of queerness, ambition, and the forbidden luster of the occult. The fierce and dangerous romance and evocative setting makes it a perfect read for Pride month and for fans of dark academia vibes. This fantasy-adjacent thriller is a good introduction for horror and gothic newbies and a twisty and twisted diversion for the well-versed.And when history begins to repeat itself, Felicity will have to face the darkness in Dalloway–and in herself. She’s determined to leave that behind now, but it’s hard when Dalloway’s occult history is everywhere.

Although the more I think about it, the more I dislike it, so I wouldn't be surprised if I changed the rating again soon. This question also weaves itself in the present timeline, challenging Felicity’s claims of being cursed and haunted. Sometimes you can still get a whiff of the blood as it dances on the air, wrapping its metallic scent around you in a terrifying embrace. Leon then goes to Tyr's mother Gelda Seward and informs her that her son has been arrested in suspicion of treason, whilst the other knights look around in the house. With every page you turn, it gets a bit more mysterious, a bit darker, a bit more complicated and therefore intriguing.Lee shows the reader how Felicity’s mental health issues are exacerbated by the abuses heaped upon her by the women in her life who are supposed to protect and care for her.

Does it really matter one way or the other if the cause for her madness is magic or men if both result in her social, emotional, and possibly even physical destruction? Gwen encourages Arthur that they will find the traitor, but little does Arthur know that Gwen is the traitor. Can Felicity come to terms with her past and move on or will Dalloway’s dark history always have a hold on her? I enjoyed the reading experience of this one but did find it somewhat lacking - the main point I kept being caught on is that the dark academia vibes felt largely for aesthetics rather than having any kind of atmosphere or tension, which I found highly ironic as there is a conversation about the characters in this book only doing witchy things for the aesthetic. Even after ages staring at myself in the mirror, I’ve only ever been able to muster a constipated sort of grimace.For the readers] who have never seen themselves represented in fiction as complex, nuanced people rather than as caricatured villains. I saw someone recently ask on Twitter what makes something “gothic” and a lot of authors and lit majors weighed in to confirm what I’ve long suspected. Often times queer romances end up sanitized and chaste, as queer sexual interactions are hypersexualized and eroticized through the straight gaze in a way that heterosexual sex isn’t.