The Dark Academicals

‘My Dearest Darkest’ seems to have flown a little under our dark academia radar and it’s one of those novels that I’ve seen people haul, but never actually read and review. We’re giving it it’s moment today.

‘Wilder Girls’ meets ‘The Craft’ in this Sapphic horror debut that asks: what price would you be willing to pay to achieve your deepest desires?

Finch Chamberlin is the newest transfer student to the ultra-competitive Ulalume Academy... but she's also not what she seems. Months before school started, Finch and her parents got into an accident that should have left her dead at the bottom of the river. But something monstrous, and ancient, and terrifying, wouldn't let her drown. Finch doesn't know why she woke up after her heart stopped, but since dying she's felt a constant pull from the school and the surrounding town of Rainwater, like something on the island is calling to her.

Selena St. Clair sees right through Finch, and she knows something is seriously wrong with her. But despite Selena's suspicion, she feels drawn to Finch and has a sinking feeling that from now on the two will be inexplicably linked to one another.

One night Finch, Selena, and her friends accidentally summon a carnivorous creature of immense power in the depths of the school. It promises to grant every desire the girls have kept locked away in their insecure hearts—beauty, power, adoration—in exchange for a price: human body parts. But as the cost of their wanting becomes more deadly, Finch and Selena must learn to work together to stop the horror they unleashed, before it consumes the entire island.

Accidentally summoning a…something in an exclusive academy? Give it to me. This book looks like it’s going to be huge fun, but it is dark academia?

In this episode we discuss:

• The lack of emotional and emotional agency of the characters

• Ticking trope boxes vs actually embodying the genre

• Clashing genres and plot devices

• ‘My Dearest Darkest’ by Kayla Cottingham

• ‘Wilder Girls’ by Rory Power

• ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt

• ‘The Craft’ (1996)

• ‘The Ring’ (2002)

If you fancy taking a chance on ‘My Dearest Darkest’, we’d love it if you considered using our bookshop.org link below to purchase your copy of the book which helps us fund ‘The Dark Academicals’ and gives back to independent bookshops at no extra cost to you.

You can also sign up to The Dark Academicals Book Club mailer to be entered for exclusive book club content and giveaways!

This debut is one of our most anticipated books of the year and we jumped at the chance to get it on the line-up for season 4. I mean, have you see that cover?!

Clare arrives at the University of Edinburgh with a secret. This is her chance for a blank slate: to find the right people and reinvent herself.

And then she meets Tabitha.

Tabitha is charismatic, beautiful and intimidatingly wealthy. Soon Clare is sucked into her enigmatic circle of friends and their dizzying world of champagne on rooftops and summers in France.

Her new life has begun.

Then Tabitha reveals the little project they're working on, a project they need Clare's help with. It's reckless, possibly perilous and might finally allow Clare to become who she was meant to be...

But how much is an extraordinary life worth if others have to pay?

An intoxicating feminist page-turner with shades of The Secret History and Promising Young Woman, this novel will take you on a journey from Edinburgh's dazzling spires to the dripping staircases and dark alleyways of its underbelly.

Feminist revenge? Check. Beautiful Edinburgh? Check. Toxic friendships? Check.

In this episode we discuss:

• Dilapidated, moulding, Gothic manors

• The broad intertextuality of the novel and the evocative nature of those comparisons in the genre

• The power and freedom that money provides women

• ‘The Things We Do to Our Friends’ by Heather Darwent

• ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt

• ‘Plain Bad Heroines’ by emily m danforth

• ‘A Discovery of Witches’ by Deborah Harkness

• ‘If We Were Villains’ by ML Rio

• ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman

• ‘Mexican Gothic’ by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

• ‘Call Me By Your Name’ by André Aciman

• The TikTok trend of men illustrating how they view female rage and then being corrected by women

If you fancy getting involved with the goings on at the University of Edinburgh and grabbing yourself a copy of the novel, we’d love it if you considered using our bookshop.org link below which helps us fund ‘The Dark Academicals’ and gives back to independent bookshops at no extra cost to you.

You can also sign up to The Dark Academicals Book Club mailer to be entered for exclusive book club content and giveaways!

It’s already time for our dark academia adjacent title for season 4! And we’re going in BIG.

Confession time: Sophie had somehow got to the ripe old age of 30 without reading ‘Interview With the Vampire’, or any of Anne Rice’s novels, so this one was at her request. Sarah has been a fan since her teen years so she was more than happy to indulge the request.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Anne Rice, this sensuously written spellbinding classic remains 'the most successful vampire story since Bram Stoker's Dracula' (The Times)

In a darkened room a young man sits telling the macabre and eerie story of his life - the story of a vampire, gifted with eternal life, cursed with an exquisite craving for human blood.

When Interview with the Vampire was published the Washington Post said it was a 'thrilling, strikingly original work of the imagination . . . sometimes horrible, sometimes beautiful, always unforgettable'. Now, more than forty years since its release, Anne Rice's masterpiece is more beloved than ever.

Not exactly a summary that gives much away, but it’s more than enough to whet the whistle.

Gothic fiction is a pre-cursor genre to dark academia, and ‘Interview With the Vampire’ itself is a cultural set point and we had to bring it in tho the dark academia discussion.

But can it actually be called dark academia? Or is it just a close friend?

In this episode we discuss:

• The language used around Claudia

• Colonialism and slavery in the novel

• The violence against women

• ‘Interview With the Vampire’ by Anne Rice

• ‘The Vampire Lestat’ by Anne Rice

• ‘The Vampire Armand’ by Anne Rice

• ‘Twilight’ by Stephenie Meyer

• ‘Vampire Academy’ by Richelle Mead

• ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’

• ‘True Blood’

• ‘The Vampire Diaries’

• ‘Why Are There So Many Confederate Vampires?’ by Princess Weekes on YouTube

• ‘Interview with the Vampire’ on Wikipedia
  

We’d love it if you considered using our bookshop.org link below to grab a copy of ‘Interview With the Vampire’ if you haven’t discovered this dark delight yet. It helps us fund ‘The Dark Academicals’ and gives back to independent bookshops at no extra cost to you.

You can also sign up to The Dark Academicals Book Club mailer to be entered for exclusive book club content and giveaways!

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a completely beloved author of sumptuous, historical novels so maybe you’re wondering why we’re tackling one of her novels for ‘The Dark Academicals’ - well, stick with us.

Gothic fantasy can be dark academia, plus it’s set in a big mansion, the summary speaks of secrets and mysteries and we’re a sucker for beautiful writing.

The award-winning author of ‘Gods of Jade and Shadow’ (one of the 100 best fantasy novels of all time, TIME magazine) returns with a mesmerising feminist Gothic fantasy, in which a glamorous young socialite discovers the haunting secrets of a beautiful old mansion in 1950s Mexico.

He is trying to poison me. You must come for me, Noemí. You have to save me.

When glamorous socialite Noemí Taboada receives a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin begging to be rescued from a mysterious doom, it's clear something is desperately amiss. Catalina has always had a flair for the dramatic, but her claims that her husband is poisoning her and her visions of restless ghosts seem remarkable, even for her.

Noemí's chic gowns and perfect lipstick are more suited to cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing, but she immediately heads to High Place, a remote mansion in the Mexican countryside, determined to discover what is so affecting her cousin.

Tough and smart, she possesses an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: not of her cousin's new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi's dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family's youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family's past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family's once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And Noemí, mesmerised by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to leave this enigmatic house behind . . .

Now, Sophie has a tricky relationship with historical fiction and both of us had actually tried to read this before a few years ago and didn’t quite connect with it, but will the magic of the podcast transform this book for us? Will Gothic fantasy become dark academia?

Come along and find out.

In this episode we discuss:

• The presence and discussion of colonialism, eugenics and oppression in the novel

• Trauma bonds and the longevity of the romantic relationship

• Fungal horror

• ‘Mexican Gothic’ by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

• ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F Scott Fitzgerald

• ‘Certain Dark Things’ by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

• ‘The Daughter of Doctor Moreau’ by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

• ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Brontë

• ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier

• ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ by Edgar Allan Poe

• The theories of Freud and Jung

If you’re a little late to this dark, historical fantasy like we were, you can grab a copy of ‘Mexican Gothic’ from bookshop.org and support both us and independent bookshops. A win for all, with no extra cost to you!

You can also sign up to The Dark Academicals Book Club mailer to be entered for exclusive book club content and giveaways!

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.

You can also sign up to The Dark Academicals Book Club mailer to be entered for exclusive book club content and giveaways!

We’re back for season 4! You’ve missed us, right? We’ve missed recording the podcast so we’re so pleased to be back.

Our first title this season is Kelly Andrew’s debut, ‘The Whispering Dark’ and what a book to kick off the new season with! This hauntingly atmospheric novel delivers endless vibes and a love interest that threw us right back to the bad boys with bad attitudes of Golden Age YA of old (aka 2005-2015).

Spoiler: we loved this book, and we reckon you guys will too.

NINTH HOUSE meets THE ATLAS SIX in the enemies-to-lovers dark academia debut everyone's talking about . . .

Delaney Meyers-Petrov is tired of being seen as fragile just because she's Deaf. So, when she's accepted into a prestigious program at Godbole University that trains students to slip between parallel worlds, she's excited for the chance to prove herself. But her semester gets off to a rocky start when she has an awkward encounter with a pretentious upperclassman, Colton Price, whom she has every intention of keeping her distance from.

Colton has been ordered to keep far away from the new girl, and the voices that call to her from the shadows. But the pull of her proves impossible to ignore, and he can't help but be fascinated by her unusual talents.

After a fellow student turns up dead, she and Colton are forced to form a tenuous alliance, plummeting down a rabbit hole of deeply buried university secrets. They soon find themselves up against something old and nameless, an enemy that threatens to tear them - and their forbidden partnership - apart.

Enemies-to-lovers? Yes, please. A Deaf protagonist? About time. A suspected murder? Of course.

We HAD to put this as our series opener.

But is it dark academia?

In this episode we discuss:

• The development of Lane and her coming into her own

• Our love for Colton Price: a classic YA love interest

• Lane’s experience as a Deaf student navigating university

• ‘The Whispering Dark’ by Kelly Andrew

• ‘Ninth House’ by Leigh Bardugo

• ‘The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer’ by Michelle Hodkin

• ‘Black Dagger Brotherhood’ by JR Ward

• ‘Vicious’ by VE Schwab

• ‘Twilight’ by Stephenie Meyer

• ‘Supernatural’

• The Hinterlands of ‘The Nightmare before Christmas’

You can grab a copy of ‘The Whispering Dark’ from bookshop.org and support both us and independent bookshops. A win for all, with no extra cost to you!

You can also sign up to The Dark Academicals Book Club mailer to be entered for exclusive book club content and giveaways!

It’s the finale of Season 3 of ‘The Dark Academicals’ and we’re hoping to end on a dark academia-induced high!

Now don’t be put off by the UK paperback cover of ‘The Swallows’. It really looks nothing like a dark academia novel, it looks more like a gritty thriller, but the American cover was what caught our attention and prompted us to see what it was all about.

GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS

What do you love? What do you hate? What do you want?

It starts with this simple writing prompt from Alex Witt to her students at Stonebridge Academy. When their answers raise disturbing questions of their own, Ms. Witt knows there's more going on at the school than anyone will admit. She finds the few girls who've started to question the school's `boys will be boys' attitude and incites a resistance that quickly becomes a movement. As the school's secrets begin to trickle out, the skirmish turns into an all-out war, with deeply personal - and potentially fatal - consequences for everyone involved.

A girl-power-smash-the-patriarchy twist on dark academia? Sign. Us. Up.

In this episode we discuss:

• The harmful and stereotypical portrayal of feminists

• How important a setting is to create a dark academia atmosphere

• How the structure and number of perspectives in a novel shape your experience of characters

• ‘The Swallows’ by Lisa Lutz

• ‘Madam’ by Phoebe Wynne

We also announced the line-up of titles for Season 4 which will begin streaming on 7 February 2023 so give it a listen for a sneak peek! Everything will be officially announced here on ‘Books, Burgers and Backpacks’ in the New Year.

You can grab a copy of ‘The Swallows’ from bookshop.org and support both us and independent bookshops. A win for all, with no extra cost to you!

You can also sign up to The Dark Academicals Book Club mailer to be entered for exclusive book club content and giveaways!

‘Vicious’ in the first book in a much-loved duology by and even more loved author, VE Schwab, and we’re super excited to tackle it for ‘The Dark Academicals’ this week.

Melding brilliantly clever university students, toxic relationships, danger and mysterious Extraordinaries, it already seems to tick some of our boxes. But does it pass the dark academia vibe check?

Oh, this book. Are our hearts ready for the dark academia adjacent title for season 3? Unsure, but we’re doing it anyway.

We put the book for this episode to a vote by your guys, our lovely listeners, and this novel won by a landslide! ‘The Song of Achilles’ by Madeline Miller retells the kind of story from the worlds and legends that captivate the protagonists of dark academia novels, and it’s the type of novel that they would become obsessed in a moment.

Greece in the age of heroes.

Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Despite their differences, Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles's mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, Achilles must go to war in distant Troy and fulfil his destiny. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus goes with him, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear.

It’s such a different novel to our usual picks, so how will it fare against the dark academia checklist?

In this episode we discuss:

• What characters of dark academia would be reading

• The portrayal of women in Greek mythology and retellings

• The balance between Patroclus and Achilles’ personalities

• ‘The Song of Achilles’ by Madeline Miller

• ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt

If you’re yet to discover ‘The Song of Achilles’ and cry over Patroclus and Achilles, we’d love it if you would considering purchasing a copy from bookshop.org. They support independent bookstores and us too with our affiliate link.

You can also sign up to The Dark Academicals Book Club mailer to be entered for exclusive book club content and giveaways!

This week we have something a little different for ‘The Dark Academicals’: dark academia…smut? Yep. ‘A Lesson in Thorns’ is the first book in a super spicy dark academia series by a TikTok fave author. Sarah has already read and loved the book so we’re both ready to delve into something fun:

Twelve years ago, I left Thornchapel—and the two boys I gave my heart to—behind.

And now I've returned, hopeful...and wary. Because it's so very easy to be drawn back into the world of the seductive and elegant Auden Guest . . . and into the world of his worst enemy, St. Sebastian Martinez. The beautiful and brooding St. Sebastian is as irresistible as he ever was, and Auden is just as handsome and arrogant, and the three of us can't seem to unknot ourselves from each other.
From the hasty promise we three made all those years ago.

As Thornchapel slowly tightens its coil of truths and lies around us, our reluctant threesome starts unravelling into filthy, holy pleasure and pain. Together we've awakened a fate that will either bloom like a rose . . . or destroy us all.

From the author of the USA Today bestselling New Camelot series comes a gothic, dark academia fairy tale full of lantern-lit rituals, hungry desire, and obsessions that last for lifetimes...

Doesn’t it sound like the perfect book to dive into for the podcast? We have brooding and beautiful boys, the mysterious Thornchapel and the promise of secrets and lies galore. But is that enough for us to give it the seal of approval?

In this episode we discuss:

- How erotic elements effect the dark academia vibe

- The power of weather in creating atmosphere