I am a writer whose passion for Dark Academia developed in the academic world, teaching and studying at universities, as well as working in libraries and archives across the U.S. and Europe. I hold a master’s degree and Ph.D. in History from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. The hallowed halls of historic universities provide an ideal backdrop to explore ruthless competition and the relentless drive for intellectual supremacy, which is integral to the Academy. It’s a happy coincidence to me that Dark Academia books have become so popular recently. Fun fact: The Bequest was written before I had ever heard the term!
The Cloisters, a branch of the Met Museum, which is a replica of medieval monasteries and abbeys in Fort Tryon Park, is the perfect setting for this Dark Academia novel.
Dark Academia is all about vibes and atmosphere, and this one is exemplary. The evocative Gothic architecture works as an effective backdrop for the complex characters, each with their own secrets, questionable agendas, and complicated relationships with their colleagues in this fishbowl.
I loved the attention to detail, the gorgeous writing, and the way that history, especially the history of Tarot cards, was woven seamlessly into the suspenseful narrative. I sympathized with Ann Stillwell, the hyper-intelligent protagonist from Walla Walla, WA, as she navigated the choppy waters of the upper echelons of the New York scholarly world.
See for yourself how exposure to these new people and this murky environment affects her.
“For fans of The Talented Mr. Ripley and The Secret History…The perfect mystery.” —Jenna Bush Hager, Today
In this “sinister, jaw-dropping” (Sarah Penner, author of The Lost Apothecary) debut novel, a circle of researchers uncover a mysterious deck of tarot cards and shocking secrets in New York’s famed Met Cloisters.
When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden…
I love a Dark Academia book that knows the world of academia intimately, and this thriller, which focuses on controversial Greek life at the University of Georgia, gets everything right.
Competition between students, peer pressure, department intrigues, and more come alive in this brilliant debut. This comes as no surprise, as Nossett, in addition to being an amazing writer, is herself a professor, and holds a PhD in German literature.
In addition to being a total page-turner, this enthralling novel highlights contemporary issues faced on college campuses, with an emphasis on ethical debates surrounding fraternities and sororities. Nossett’s characterization is excellent, and her determined, whip-smart, and yet imperfect protagonist, Detective Marlitt Kaplan, is one I rooted for, and you will, too.
Lauren Nossett’s artfully written debut, The Resemblance is an exhilarating, atmospheric campus thriller reminiscent of If We Were Villains and The Likeness.
Never betray the brotherhood
On a chilly November morning at the University of Georgia, a fraternity brother steps off a busy crosswalk and is struck dead by an oncoming car. More than a dozen witnesses all agree on two things: the driver looked identical to the victim, and he was smiling.
Detective Marlitt Kaplan is first on the scene. An Athens native and the daughter of a UGA professor, she knows all its shameful histories, from the skull…
Megan Abbott has been called the queen of crime fiction, and it’s easy to see why.
This is my personal favorite of her books, set in the academic world—as usual, Abbott’s prose is vivid and dazzling, and she crafts deeply flawed but sympathetic characters. Her evocation of female friendships, highlighted here in the context of an elite scientific research lab, is second to none. This haunting tale of ambition and rivalry kept me up at night.
'Megan Abbott at her very best. Cool, crisp, chilling.' Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
You told each other everything. Then she told you too much.
Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is on the brink of achieving everything she wanted. She hasn't let anything stop her.
But now someone else is standing in her way - Diane. Best friends at seventeen, their shared ambition made them inseparable. Until the day Diane told Kit her secret - the worst thing she'd ever done, the worst thing Kit could imagine - and it blew…
This beautifully-written slow-burn mystery centers around a close-knit group of friends returning to campus for their ten-year reunion—one of the friends had been brutally murdered when they were students, but the true killer remains unknown.
I love the way the plot weaves in and out between past and present, revealing an expanding trail of secrets and lies. Winstead, another former academic, keeps the twists coming, culminating in an ending that is certain to astonish.
"[A] mordant debut novel....examines what it means to covet the lives of others, no matter the cost."-The New York Times
"Tense, twisty, and packed with shocks."-Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of Survive The Night
Six friends. One college reunion. One unsolved murder.
Ten years after graduation, Jessica Miller has planned her triumphant return to her southern, elite Duquette University, down to the envious whispers that are sure to follow in her wake. Everyone is going to see the girl she wants them to see-confident, beautiful, indifferent. Not the girl she was when she left campus, back when Heather…
No Dark Academia list would be complete without The Secret History—Donna Tartt’s 1992-debut (!) has come to define the genre.
Among the many things I love about this novel are that it’s a mystery told in reverse, and a meditation on toxic friendships between students at a top-tier institution, which explores the darker corners of the human psyche contained within classical texts.
It’s a book I come back to again and again, and Tartt’s effortless style has influenced my own writing. There’s an intimacy here, and readers will feel as if they, too, are starting their campus journey together with newcomer Richard Papen, at a college based on Tartt’s own alma mater, Bennington.
'Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together---my future, my past, the whole of my life---and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!'
Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries.…
He’s riddled with guilt. She’s annoyed with the status quo.
The death of a crime boss’s daughter forces Detective Neil Caldera to leave NYC. He seeks refuge in the tranquil embrace of a small town, where he finds himself entangled in the labyrinth of a teenage girl’s murder. Tess Fleishman’s pale skin and extreme weight loss portrays a disease she wants others to see. While inside, a compulsion for Neil fuels her passion to have him or destroy him.
He's riddled with guilt. She's annoyed with the status quo. The death of a crime boss's daughter forces Detective Neil Caldera to leave NYC. He seeks refuge in the tranquil embrace of a small town, where he finds himself entangled in the labyrinth of a teenage girl's murder. Tess Fleishman's pale skin and extreme weight loss portrays a disease she wants others to see. While inside, a compulsion for Neil fuels her passion to have him or destroy him. As Neil delves into the heart of the town's secrets, will truth deliver solace? Or will Tess prevail?
