The season one finale of ‘The Dark Academicals’ sees us exploring ‘Catherine House’ by Elisabeth Thomas about a forboding university full of secrets, surpises and a shockingly sinister purpose as our protagonist, Ines, grapples with what Catherine wants from her.

We loved ‘Catherine House’ and we’re so happy to end the season on such a high.

In this episode our discussion included:

• The pseudoscience of plasm and the concentrations of Catherine

• Ines’s trauma response and coping mechanisms and how that influences her narration

• The Gothic motif of the haunted house

We also reveal the six titles in the Season 2 line up!

• ‘Catherine House’ by Elisabeth Thomas

• ‘Madam’ by Phoebe Wynn

• ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F Scott Fitzgerald

• ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins

We also announced the titles for season 2:

• ‘The Atlas Six’ by Olivie Blake

• ‘Sleepwalking’ by Meg Wolitzer

• ‘The Maidens’ by Alex Michaelides

• ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde

• ‘The Mary Shelley Club’ by Goldy Moldavsky

• ‘The Raven Boys’ by Maggie Stiefvater

(Full bibliography and show notes made available through Patreon)

If you fancy getting your hands on ‘Catherine House’ you can buy it from bookshop.org which both supports us as affliiates, but also supports local bookshops!