Release date: February 13 2024
Publisher: Orbit Books
Pages: 320
Find it: Goodreads Waterstones
Source: I received an E-ARC via Netgalley
Rating: 3.75/5 stars

Synopsis

Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua’s College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold.

On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful and enigmatic Carmilla. Together, they are drawn into the confidence of their demanding poetry professor, De Lafontaine, who holds her own dark obsession with Carmilla.

But as their rivalry blossoms into something far more delicious, Laura must confront her own strange hungers. Tangled in a sinister game of politics, bloodthirsty professors and dark magic, Laura and Carmilla must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice in their ruthless pursuit of knowledge.

Review

An Education in Malice is the newest release from S T Gibson, author of A Dowry of Blood. The story follows Laura Sheridan, a young woman starting at Saint Perpetua’s College. There she forms an academic rivalry with a girl in her poetry class named Carmilla, but their teacher Ms De Lafontaine, has her own secrets, and as the two are drawn into her confidence, Laura and Carmilla find themselves tangled in a dark web of secrets.

A Dowry of Blood was one of my favourite reads of 2021 so I was very much looking forward to picking this one up. Much like A Dowry of Blood, this book is dark, bloody, and addictive. I ended up racing through this book in particularly one sitting and I enjoyed the story immensely. It does feel very different from A Dowry of Blood and I ultimately preferred Gibson’s previous novel but Gibson has crafted a very compelling and captivating tale in An Education in Malice.

I was interested to learn on picking this one up that the story is inspired by J Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, a book that I actually read last month. I enjoyed seeing the way Gibson took elements of the original and wove them into this dark academia tale. I really enjoyed the school setting and the way Laura and Carmilla’s relationship developed. I did feel things wrapped up a little quickly in the end but overall the story comes to a satisfying conclusion. Gibson does a brilliant job of exploring relationships and desire in this story as well as the meaning of obsession and desire.

Gibson has a really beautiful, vivid writing style and it was very easy to become completely absorbed in the story. I would have loved the story to be a little longer just to explore Iris and de Lafontaine’s relationship a little more. Overall An Education in Malice is an engrossing, fascinating tale and if you’re looking for a dark fantasy vampire story, this one is exactly what you’re looking for.