Our second episode of the season tackles a book that has been on our radars for a really long time - ‘A Lesson in Vengeance’ by Victoria Lee.

This book had some real buzz on TikTok last year and it pushed it even higher up our lists. With a boarding school, the possibility of haunting witches, and child novelist prodigies, I’m not sure how it could be anything less than brilliant fun. Or is it way less than fun…?

A twisty dark academia 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. Perfect for fans of V.E. Schwab, Leigh Bardugo, M.L. Rio and Donna Tartt.

Felicity Morrow is back at the Dalloway School to finish her senior year after the tragic death of her girlfriend. 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.

Witchcraft is woven into Dalloway’s past. The school doesn’t talk about it, but the students do. In secret rooms and shadowy corners, girls convene. And before her girlfriend died, Felicity was drawn to the dark. She’s determined to leave that behind now, but it’s hard when Dalloway’s occult history is everywhere. And when the new girl won’t let her forget.

It’s Ellis Haley’s first year at Dalloway. A prodigy novelist at seventeen, Ellis is eccentric and brilliant, and Felicity can’t shake the pull she feels to her. So when Ellis asks Felicity for help researching the Dalloway Five for her second book, Felicity can’t say no. And when history begins to repeat itself, Felicity will have to face the darkness in Dalloway―and in herself.

Comparing a book to Donna Tartt is a bold move, but it 100% gets our attention. Though calling it a thriller also brings on some hesitancy - can it be a thriller and a dark academia novel?

In this episode we discuss:

• How too many ways of singling out characters to make them special and real can make them become a caricature

• Witches, magic and the occult

• A ‘ticking the box’ approach to dark academia

• ‘A Lesson in Vengeance’ by Victoria Lee

• ‘The Haunting Hill House’ by Shirley Jackson

• ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ by Shirley Jackson

• ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier

• ‘Plain Bad Heroines’ by Emily M Danforth

• ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt

• ‘Mexican Gothic’ by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

If you fancy a stay in a haunted boarding school and grabbing yourself a copy of the novel, we’d love it if you considered using our bookshop.org link below which helps up fund ‘The Dark Academicals’ and gives back to independent bookshops at no extra cost to you.

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