Sumptuous and addictive, An Education in Malice is a dark academia tale of blood, secrets and insatiable hungers from S.T. Gibson, author of the cult hit A Dowry of Blood.
Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua’s College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, 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, De Lafontaine, 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. Tangled 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.
For more from S.T. Gibson, check out A Dowry of Blood.
Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua’s College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, 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, De Lafontaine, 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. Tangled 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.
For more from S.T. Gibson, check out A Dowry of Blood.
Title: An Education In Malice
Author: S.T. Gibson
Publisher: Redhook
Expected Publication Date: February 13, 2024
Review:
I'd like to thank NetGalley and Redhook for providing me with an egalley of this book to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
A dark academia tale filled with secrets, blood, and mystery as two girls navigate the world of poetry with their professor who is much more than she seems.
I love a good dark academic tale. Especially one filled with mystery and a bit of the paranormal. So I was excited to dive into this one to see what it held for me. I knew nothing of the background story, this being toted as a retelling of a story called Carmilla. Since I've read no other Gibson, I wasn't sure what to make of it. So I definitely went in blind and not knowing what to expect. Then I read a few reviews after I finished the book and realized that perhaps I would have benefitted from reading A Dowry In Blood first as it is the same world.
Let's start with what I enjoyed. I love a good tale told from dual POV, and this book gave us Laura and Carmilla. It was nice to see how things were progressing in the story through their eyes as their points of view were vastly different. This way of telling the story easily characterized both Laura and Carmilla. One being quite innocent while the other was much more worldly. The dynamic between the two vasillated from hatred to pure attraction.
Speaking of the romance, it was quite interesting. The book offered good sapphic representation. I have read very few books in this genre so this gave me more education in this area. The romance was fraught with tension and a push and pull between not only the main characters but the professor who tied them together. And the addition of the professor almost made it a love triangle, but not quite. It was hard to pin down exactly what we were supposed to get from the relationship between the professor and Carmilla. In all honesty, I had no empathy for the characters Gibson created. In the long run they were boring for me and I didn't feel invested to worry about what would or would not happen to them.
The pacing was a bit slow for me. I honestly felt like there wasn't much that pushed the chapters going forward for me except the fact that I was finding the story quite odd and needed to know how it would end up.
The paranormal aspect was good but didn't quite incorporate enough of the vampiric aspect I would have liked to see. One seen, at Magdelena's, a socialite of vampire society was quite interesting and brought in the vampiric world. But besides that one scene, I didn't see much world building when it came to it. But, in all honesty, you could have removed the vampire aspect and the story would have remained the same. I didn't feel like it leant anything new and exciting to the story.
Overall, I wasn't a fan of the writing or the story but it was nice enough. I think fans of gothic romance will enjoy it overall.
Author:
Saint is a literary agent, author, and village wise woman in training. A graduate of the creative writing program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and the theological studies program at Princeton Seminary, she currently lives in Boston with her partner, spoiled Persian cat, and vintage blazer collection. She is represented by Tara Gilbert of the Jennifer De Chiara literary agency.
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