The Dark Academicals

We’re heading to Huntsworth Academy for this episode of the podcast, and returning to YA, with Jenni Howell’s Boys With Sharp Teeth.

Seventeen-year-old Marin James has spent her entire life living in the shadow of the exclusive Huntsworth Academy. So when her cousin’s dead body is found in a creek on school property, Marin knows exactly who’s to blame: Adrian Graves and Henry Wu, the enigmatic, yet dangerous leaders of the school's ecosystem.

Swapping her ragged T-shirts for a crisp prep school uniform, Marin infiltrates Huntsworth to exact her revenge. But her quest for vengeance is quickly muddied by a confusing attraction to her new life, and to the two dysfunctional and devastating boys who understand her better than anyone ever has.

When Marin uncovers a dark, eerie secret hiding behind Huntsworth's ivied gates, the lines between justice and vengeance, love and hate, and the real and supernatural begin to crumble –and nothing is as it seems.

Welcome to Huntsworth Academy.

Will we finally get a YA novel that we can comfortably call dark academia?

In this episode we discuss:

- Our very different feelings about this book…

- Does the supernatural elements undermine the dark academia vibes?

- An unexpected foray into discussing the ‘People We Meet on Vacation’ movie…

It’s time for our Dark Academia adjacent title of the season! And we’re doing it in Gothic style. ‘The Monk’ is one of those books that both of us have wanted to read for a long time.

Back in season three we dove in Mona Awad’s ‘Bunny’ with no idea what we were getting into, and even less idea how foundational a text it would be for this podcast and our discussions around dark academia and genre.

We were both fascinated with how Awad would revisit Sam and the Bunnies, even though it’s not dark academia as we know it.

In the cult classic novel Bunny, Samantha Heather Mackey, a lonely outsider student at a highly selective MFA program in New England, was first ostracised and then seduced by a clique of her saccharine sweet, rich girl cohort (who call one another ‘Bunny’). An invitation to the Bunnies’ Smut Salon leads Samantha down a dark rabbit hole (pun intended) into the violently surreal world of their off-campus Workshops where monstrous creations are conjured with wondrous yet deadly consequences.

When We Love You, Bunny opens, Sam has just published her first novel to critical acclaim. But at a New England stop on her book tour, her one-time frenemies, furious at the way they’ve been portrayed, kidnap her. Now a captive audience, it’s her (and our) turn to hear the Bunnies’ side of the story. One by one, they take turns holding the axe, and recount the birth throes of their unholy alliance, their discovery of their unusual creative powers ― and the phantasmagoric adventure of conjuring their first creation. With a bound and gagged Sam, we embark on a wickedly intoxicating journey into the heart of dark academia: a fairy tale slasher that explores the wonder and horror of creation itself. Not to mention the transformative powers of love and friendship, Bunny. Frankenstein by way of Heathers, We Love You, Bunny is a prequel and a sequel, and an unabashedly wild and totally complete standalone novel. Open your hearts, Bunny, to a dazzlingly original and darkly hilarious romp in the Bunny-verse from the queen of the fever dream, Mona Awad.

How is ‘We Love You, Bunny’ going to reframe our ideas of ‘Bunny’? How on earth will Awad follow up on her landmark fever dream novel?

In this episode we discuss:

Can a prequel or sequel undermine the original novel? Does that happen with the Bunnyverse?

The unexpected link between ‘Katabasis’ and ‘We Love You, Bunny’ - Alice down the rabbit hole

The unexpected segway into a slasher

Season twelve is here and we’re kicking off the season with one of the biggest releases of the latter half of 2025: RF Kuang’s dark academia fantasy, ‘Katabasis’.

We had a rocky time wth ‘Babel’, but we’re taking another chance on Kuang for her latest novel about a pair of academics taking a journey into Hell to rescue their professor. Everything about the synopsis ticks our boxes, and even though the reviews have been a bit more mixed than with ‘Babel’, we’re optimistic about this one.

It’s already time for the finale of season eleven! This season has truly flown by and we’re hoping to send it off with another brilliant 2025 release.

Kate van der Borgh’s debut novel, ‘And He Shall Appear’, has been recommended for fans of ‘The Secret History’ and ‘Saltburn’ so hello, that’s us! It sounds like a deliciously dark and addictive read and in this episode we have a look to see how well it matches up to our Dark Academia framework.

In this episode we discuss:

The power of secondary characters

The reinvention of the self, especially at university

Campus novels

This episode of the podcast has been an evolution. If you’re a reader of our Substack (if not, um why?) then you’ll probably be confused that ‘Spoilt Creatures’ is making an unexpected appearance on season 11. Let me tell you, it was a journey to get here.

The previous title we picked wasn’t right for the podcast and then option two was putting me (hi, it’s me Sophie) into a reading slump and I’d only just escaped one, so we changed tacks one more time. Thankfully it stuck and we both raced through 'Spoilt Creatures’.

THEY THOUGHT THEY KNEW EVERYTHING ABOUT US. THE KIND OF WOMEN WE WERE.

Iris seeks a different kind of life. Promise comes in the form of Hazel, who lives at Breach House - a women's commune on a remote farm. At Breach House, the women live and eat in abundance, are guided by landscape and ritual, all while under the leadership of their gargantuan matriarch, Blythe.

But is Breach House truly the haven it seems? When an unforgivable transgression comes to light and power struggles intensify, the women find themselves hurtling towards an act of devastating violence that will threaten everything they've fought to create.

Cult-y sad women making bad decisions in literary fiction with dark academia vibes? Yep yep yep. But how strong are those dark academia vibes?

In this episode we discuss:

- The intersection of cults, high education and secret societies

- The rise and reign of femgore - literary feminist horror

- The trend of women creating their own curriculums

It was the cover of ‘Voice Like a Hyacinth’ that initially caught our attention, but as soon as we realised it was a tricksy novel about female friendship featuring obsessions, a ritual and a creepy professor? We needed to get that on The Dark Academicals ASAP.

The intersection of art and dark academia is always one that’s interesting and provides a different view of academic focus to what we usually see and explore on the podcast.

Five young women eager for success rely on the unspeakable to make their dreams come true in a chilling novel about martyrdom, ritual, and obsession by the author of We Ate the Dark.

Art student Jo Kozak and her fellow classmates and best friends, Caroline, Finch, Amrita, and Saz, are one another’s muses—so close they have their own language and so devoted to the craft that they’ll do anything to keep their inspiration alive. Even if it means naively resorting to the occult to unlock their creativity and to curse their esteemed, if notoriously creepy, professor. They soon learn the horrible price to be paid for such a transgressive ritual.

In its violent aftermath, things are changing. Jo is feeling unnervingly haunted by something inexplicable. Their paintings, once prodigious and full of life, are growing dark and unhealthy. And their journey together—as women, students, and artists—is starting to crumble.

To right the wrong they’ve done, these five desperate friends will take their obsession a step too far. When that happens, there may be no turning back.

‘Voice Like a Hyacinth’ sounds like it will fall in that familiar place between a literary thriller and dark academia, but there’s only one way to find out!

We’re both suckers for fantasy romance so when that intersects with dark academia? Just give it to us.

This season is really delivering on making us read authors we’ve wanted to try for ages and never gotten to as we’re reading Elise Kova’s very much anticipated new releases, ‘Arcana Academy’. This launches a new series about illegal magics, tarot, royalty and a deal gone awry. We’re very, very excited for this one.

A woman who wields magical tarot cards lands herself in a false engagement with the headmaster of a mysterious academy in this first instalment of an enthralling fantasy romance series from the bestselling author of A Deal with the Elf King.Clara Graysword has survived the underworld of Eclipse City through thievery, luck, and a whole lot of illegal magic. After a job gone awry, Clara is sentenced to a lifetime in prison for inking tarot cards-a rare power reserved for practitioners at the elite Arcana Academy.

Just when it seems her luck has run dry, the academy's enigmatic headmaster, Prince Kaelis, offers her an escape-for a price. Kaelis believes that Clara is the perfect tool to help him steal a tarot card from the king and use it to re-create an all-powerful card long lost to time.

In order to conceal her identity and keep her close, Kaelis brings Clara to Arcana Academy, introducing her as the newest first-year student and his bride-to-be.

Thrust into a world of arcane magic and royal intrigue, where one misstep will send her back to prison or worse, Clara finds that the prince she swore to hate may not be what he seems. But can she risk giving him power over the world-and her heart? Or will she take it for herself?

We absolutely love the sound of this and we can’t wait to get stuck into this chunker. We’re hoping for some swoon and danger as well as those dark academia vibes that we’re always craving.

In this episode we discuss:

- The richness of the magic system, and the lack of the general world-building

- Clara and Kaelis: a potential love story of the ages?

- Sophie’s internal struggle of reading this alongside a fantasy giant and the consequences she inflicted on herself

It’s that time of the season - dark academia adjacent time!

Our adjacent title for this season is a book from one of my literary heroes and one of my most beloved writers, Jane Austen. It’s the first time we’re tackling Austen on the podcast and we’re going to be delving into the world of the Gothic satire or parody with ‘Northanger Abbey’. Though ‘Northanger Abbey’ is one of the last published Austen novels as it was published posthumously, she wrote it towards the late 18th Century when she was in her very early 20s, following her first visit to the city of Bath.

Welcome to Season 11 of The Dark Academicals! We’ve got a heck of a season coming up for you this summer and our first title of the season is a book that has received a whole lot of love since it was traditionally published earlier this year, and the author is already beloved after only two releases.

We’ll be tackling ‘Blood Over Bright Haven’ by ML Wang.