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Dark Academia Genre Guide
| Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo Galaxy "Alex" Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale's freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, by age twenty, she is a drop-out and the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide, but at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world's most prestigious universities on a full ride. Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale's secret societies. Their eight windowless "tombs" are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street's biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. Also available on Libby as an ebook and an audiobook. | |
| A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness Witches are not the only otherworldly creatures living alongside humans. After Diana Bishop gets her hands on an elusive volume, destructive daemons and long-lived vampires become interested in the witch’s discovery, believing that the manuscript contains important clues about the past and the future. Together, Diana and Matthew, a vampire geneticist with a passion for Darwin, embark on a journey to understand the manuscript’s secrets. But the relationship that develops between the ages-old vampire and the spellbound witch threatens to unravel the fragile peace that has long existed between creatures and humans. Also available on Libby as an ebook and an audiobook. | |
| Bunny by Mona Awad A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, Samantha Heather Mackey is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearable rich girls who call each other "Bunny.” But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, caustic art school dropout, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the sinister yet saccharine world of the Bunny cult, the edges of reality begin to blur, and her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies are brought into deadly collision. Also available on Libby as an ebook and an audiobook. | |
| Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates One game. Six students. Five survivors. It was only ever meant to be a game played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University; a game of consequences, silly forfeits, and childish dares. But then the game changed: the stakes grew higher and the dares more personal and more humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results. Now, fourteen years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round. Who knows better than your best friends what would break you? Also available on Libby as an ebook and an audiobook. | |
| An Education in Malice by S. T. Gibson Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua's College. Isolated and ancient, secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold. On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful and enigmatic Carmilla. Together, they are drawn into the confidence of their demanding poetry professor who holds her own dark obsession with Carmilla. But as their rivalry blossoms into something far more delicious, Laura must confront her own strange hungers. In a sinister game of politics, bloodthirsty professors and magic, Laura and Carmilla must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice in their ruthless pursuit of knowledge. Also available on Libby as an ebook and an audiobook. | |
| Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, the Catherine House school crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world's best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. Among this year's incoming class is Ines Murillo, who expects to trade blurry nights of parties, cruel friends, and dangerous men for rigorous intellectual discipline--only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. And when tragedy strikes, Ines begins to suspect that the school--in all its shabby splendor, hallowed history, advanced theories, and controlled decadence--might be hiding a dangerous agenda within the secretive, tightly knit group of students selected to study its most promising and mysterious curriculum. Also available on Libby as an ebook and an audiobook. | |
| A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee Felicity Morrow is back at the Dalloway School. Perched in the Catskill Mountains, the centuries-old, ivy-covered campus was home until the tragic death of her girlfriend. Now, after a year away, she’s returned to finish high school. She even has her old room in Godwin House, the exclusive dormitory rumored to be haunted by the spirits of five Dalloway students—girls some say were witches. She’s determined to leave that behind now, but it’s hard when Dalloway’s occult history is everywhere. Also available on Libby as an ebook and an audiobook. | |
| The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a rare book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered, Zachary uncovers a series of clues that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to a subterranean library. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a beautiful barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly-soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose--in both the rare book and in his own life. Also available on Libby as an ebook and an audiobook. | |
| A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik There are no teachers, no holidays, and no friendships save strategic ones. Survival is more important than any letter grade, for the school won't allow its students to leave until they graduate or die. The rules are deceptively simple: Don't walk the halls alone. And beware of the monsters who lurk everywhere. El is uniquely prepared for the school's dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out untold millions. While, El is tries her hardest not to use her power, her fellow student, Orion Lake, is making heroism look like a breeze. He's saved hundreds of lives--including El's--with his flashy combat magic. But in the spring of their junior year, El is about to learn some lessons she never could in the classroom. Also available on Libby as an ebook and an audiobook. | |
| Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth In 1902, at the Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it the Plain Bad Heroine Society, until their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them. Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer Merritt Emmons publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded Age institution. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins. Also available on Libby as an ebook and an audiobook. |