Dark Academia

These twisty novels delve into the dangers of intellectual curiosity, whether from competition, conspiracy, or something else unexpected.

Showing 1 - 20 of 29  There are a total of 208 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Ninth house"
Star rating for Ninth house
Series:
Alex Stern volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
"Galaxy "Alex" Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale's freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she's thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend...
Book cover for "And he shall appear"
Star rating for And he shall appear
Description:
"From a mesmerizing new literary voice comes a story of obsessive friendship, chilling powers, and untimely death for readers of dark academia classics like If We Were Villains and The Secret History. An unnamed narrator arrives at Cambridge University in the early aughts determined to reinvent himself. His northern accent marks him as an outsider, but thanks to his musical gifts, he manages to fall in with his wealthy classmate, Bryn Cavendish. A...
Book cover for "Long black veil"
Star rating for Long black veil
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"On a warm August night in 1980, six college students sneak into the dilapidated ruins of Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary, looking for a thrill. With a pianist, a painter, and a teacher among them, the friends are full of potential. But it's not long before they realize they are locked in--and not alone. When the friends get lost and separated, the terrifying night ends in tragedy, and the unexpected, far-reaching consequences reverberate...
Book cover for "Tell me everything"
Star rating for Tell me everything
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
In her first weeks at Hawthorne College, Malin is swept up into a tight-knit circle that will stick together through all four years. There's Gemma, an insecure theater major from London; John, a tall, handsome, wealthy New Englander; Max, John's cousin, a shy pre-med major; Khaled, a wisecracking prince from Abu Dhabi; and Ruby, a beautiful art history major. But Malin isn't like the rest of her friends. She's an expert at hiding her troubled past....
Book cover for "Society of lies"
Star rating for Society of lies
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"When a young woman turns up dead on her college campus, her sister doesn't believe it was an accident-and when she starts to dig for answers, her investigations take her closer to home than she ever would have imagined in this thrilling debut novel from an exciting new talent Every year, Maya loves heading back to Princeton for her reunions--she may have graduated a decade ago, but it's always fun to see old faces and take a walk through her own...
Book cover for "The rule of four"
Star rating for The rule of four
Average Rating:
3.2 stars
Description:
Princeton. Good Friday, 1999. On the eve of graduation, two friends are a hairsbreadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a Renaissance text that has baffled scholars for centuries. Famous for its hypnotic power over those who study it, the five-hundred-year-old Hypnerotomachia may finally reveal its secrets--to Tom Sullivan, whose father was obsessed with the book, and Paul Harris, whose future depends on it. As the deadline...
Book cover for "The things we do to our friends"
Star rating for The things we do to our friends
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"She's an outsider desperate to belong, but the cost of entry might be her darkest secret in this intoxicating debut of literary suspense following a clique of dangerously ambitious students at the University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh, Scotland: a moody city of labyrinthine alleyways, oppressive fog, and buried history; the ultimate destination for someone with something to hide. Perfect for Clare, then, who arrives utterly alone and yearning to reinvent...
Book cover for "The rules of attraction"
Star rating for The rules of attraction
Average Rating:
3 stars
Book cover for "They never learn"
Star rating for They never learn
Author:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Scarlett Clark is an exceptional English professor. But she's even better at getting away with murder. Every year, Dr. Clark searches for the worst man at Gorman University--professor, student, or otherwise--and plots his well-deserved demise. Thanks to her meticulous planning, she's avoided drawing attention to herself...but as she's preparing for her biggest kill yet, the school starts probing into the growing body count on campus. Determined to...
Book cover for "The magicians"
Star rating for The magicians
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
Haboring secret preoccupations with a magical land he read about in a childhood fantasy series, Quentin Coldwater is unexpectedly admitted into an exclusive college of magic and rigorously educated in modern sorcery.
Book cover for "The Midnight Club"
Star rating for The Midnight Club
Description:
"It's been twenty-five years since The Midnight Club last convened. A tight-knit group of college friends bonded by late nights at the campus literary magazine, they're also bonded by something darker: the death of their brilliant friend Jennet junior year. But now, decades later, a mysterious invitation has pulled them back to the pine-shrouded Vermont town where it all began. As the estranged friends gather for a weeklong campus reunion, they soon...
Book cover for "An academy for liars"
Star rating for An academy for liars
Average Rating:
2 stars
Description:
"Lennon Carter's life is falling apart. Then she gets a mysterious phone call inviting her to take the entrance exam for Drayton College, a school of magic hidden in a secret pocket of Savannah. Lennon has been chosen because-like everyone else at the school-she has the innate gift of persuasion, the ability to wield her will like a weapon, using it to control others and, in rare cases, matter itself. After passing the test, Lennon begins to learn...
Book cover for "Vladímír"
Star rating for Vladímír
Average Rating:
2.8 stars
Description:
"When I was a child, I loved old men, and I could tell that they also loved me." And so we are introduced to our deliciously incisive narrator: a popular English professor whose charismatic husband at the same small liberal arts college is under investigation for his inappropriate relationships with his former students. The couple have long had a mutual understanding when it comes to their extra-marital pursuits, but with these new allegations, life...
Book cover for "Never saw me coming"
Star rating for Never saw me coming
Author:
Average Rating:
2.8 stars
Book cover for "The incendiaries"
Star rating for The incendiaries
Author:
Average Rating:
1.5 stars
Description:
In this "novel of violence, love, faith, and loss, ... a young woman at an elite American university is drawn into acts of domestic terrorism by a cult tied to North Korea"--Amazon.com.
Book cover for "You belong here"
Star rating for You belong here
Description:
"Beckett Bowery never thought she'd return to Wyatt Valley, a picturesque college town in the Virginia mountains steeped in tradition. Her roots there were strong: Beckett's parents taught at the college, and she never even imagined studying anywhere else--until a tragedy her senior year ended with two local men dead, and her roommate on the run, never to be seen again. For the last two decades, Beckett has done her best to keep her distance. Then...
Book cover for "These violent delights"
Star rating for These violent delights
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"When Paul enters university in early 1970s Pittsburgh, it's with the hope of moving past the recent death of his father. Sensitive, insecure, and incomprehensible to his grieving family, Paul feels isolated and alone. When he meets the worldly Julian in his freshman ethics class, Paul is immediately drawn to his classmate's effortless charm. Paul sees Julian as his sole intellectual equal--an ally against the conventional world he finds so suffocating....
Book cover for "A study in drowning"
Star rating for A study in drowning
Author:
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"Effy Sayre has always believed in fairy tales. Haunted by her visions of the Fairy King since childhood, she's had no choice. Her tattered copy of Angharad--Emrys Myrddin's epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, then destroys him--is the only thing keeping her afloat. So when Myrddin's family announces a contest to redesign the late author's estate, Effy feels certain it is her destiny"--
Book cover for "If we were villains"
Star rating for If we were villains
Author:
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, the man who put him there is waiting at the door. Detective Colborne wants to know the truth, and after ten years, Oliver is finally ready to tell it. A decade ago: Oliver is one of seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of keen ambition and fierce competition. In this secluded world of firelight and leather-bound books, Oliver and his friends play the same roles...
Book cover for "Ghosts of Harvard"
Star rating for Ghosts of Harvard
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"Cadence "Cady" Archer arrives on Harvard's campus searching for answers about her brother, a schizophrenic genius who leapt from his dorm room window the year before. Eric's brilliance overshadowed Cady growing up, but she worshipped and adored him--even as he became more unstable, retreating deeper into his secretive work on multidimensional spacetime and isolating himself from everyone around him. Losing Eric has left a black hole in Cady's life,...