Dark Academia

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

Showing 1 - 20 of 21  There are a total of 208 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Hell bent"
Star rating for Hell bent
Series:
Alex Stern volume 2.
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"Alex Stern returns in New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo's Hell Bent, another tale of murder and dark magic set among the Ivy League elite. Galaxy "Alex" Stern is determined to break Darlington out of hell--even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale. But Alex is playing with forces far beyond her control, and when faculty members begin to die off, she knows these aren't just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven,...
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 "Book of night"
Star rating for Book of night
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
2.9 stars
Description:
"Charlie Hall has never found a lock she couldn't pick, a book she couldn't steal, or a bad decision she wouldn't make. She's spent half her life working for gloamists, magicians who manipulate shadows to peer into locked rooms, strangle people in their beds, or worse. Gloamists guard their secrets greedily, creating an underground economy of grimoires. And to rob their fellow magicians, they need Charlie. Now, she's trying to distance herself from...
Book cover for "The atlas six"
Star rating for The atlas six
Series:
Atlas volume 1.
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation. Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and...
Book cover for "The city of brass"
Star rating for The city of brass
Series:
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
A "historical fantasy in which a young con artist in eighteenth century Cairo discovers she's the last descendant of a powerful family of djinn healers. With the help of an outcast immortal warrior and a rebellious prince, she must claim her magical birthright in order to prevent a war that threatens to destroy the entire djinn kingdom"--
Book cover for "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell"
Star rating for Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
Epic tale of nineteenth-century England and the two very different magicians who, as teacher and pupil and then as rivals, emerge to change its history.
Book cover for "Piranesi"
Star rating for Piranesi
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"From the ... author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality. Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi...
Book cover for "Legendborn"
Star rating for Legendborn
Author:
Series:
Legendborn volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"To discover the truth behind her mother's mysterious death, a teen girl infiltrates a magical secret society claiming to be the descendants of King Arthur and his knights."--
Book cover for "A dowry of blood"
Star rating for A dowry of blood
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
In this dark, fantasy sensation, S. T. Gibson spins the gothic, seductive tale of Dracula's first bride, Constanta. This is my last love letter to you, though some would call it a confession. . . Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta...
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 "Radiant Days"
Star rating for Radiant Days
Description:

She is a painter. He is a poet. Their art bridges time. It is 1978. Merle is in her first year at the Corcoran School of Art, catapulted from her impoverished Appalachian upbringing into a sophisticated, dissipated art scene. It is also 1870. The teenage poet Arthur Rimbaud is on the verge of breaking through to the images and voice that will make his name. The meshed power of words and art thins the boundaries between the present and the past—and

...
Book cover for "Babel"
Star rating for Babel
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious...
Book cover for "Katabasis"
Star rating for Katabasis
Average Rating:
1 stars
Description:
"Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world. That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault. Grimes is now in Hell, and she's going in after him. Because...
Book cover for "Immortal consequences"
Star rating for Immortal consequences
Author:
Series:
Description:
"Six students at Blackwood Academy, an enigmatic boarding school located at the edge of the afterlife, must compete for the once-in-eternity chance to change their fate--or risk remaining at Blackwood forever"--
Book cover for "The bewitching"
Star rating for The bewitching
Average Rating:
1 stars
Description:
"'Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches'. That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva--stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that's why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales. In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers...
Book cover for "The starless sea"
Star rating for The starless sea
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a rare book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues--a bee, a key, and a sword--that lead him...
Book cover for "A deadly education"
Star rating for A deadly education
Author:
Series:
Scholomance volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"In the start of an all-new series, the bestselling author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver introduces you to a school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death--until one girl begins to unlock its many secrets. Enter a school of magic unlike any you have ever encountered: There are no teachers, no holidays, and no friendships save strategic ones. Survival is more important than any letter grade, for the school won't allow its students...
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 "Blood over bright haven"
Star rating for Blood over bright haven
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
For twenty years, Sciona has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry at the University of Magics and Industry. When Sciona finally passes the qualifying exam and becomes a highmage, she finds her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues are determined to make her feel unwelcome--and, instead of a qualified lab assistant, they...

20. Slayer

Book cover for "Slayer"
Star rating for Slayer
Series:
Slayer volume 1.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Set in the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the first book in this series will introduce our new slayer as she grapples with incredible power she is just beginning to understand.