This book was so dark and provocative and had me enthralled the whole time. The author has such an eloquent way of writing that the words just fill my head in a way that I can’t put down. The ending was just jaw dropping and I want more. Excellent story!

An Education in Malice is the academic rivalry I have been searching for. This follows Laura Sheridan, a reserved girl from Mississippi who has moved to Massachusetts to attend Saint Perpetua’s College and study under Professor De Lafontaine. She’s often described as angelic, thanks to her halo of blonde hair and her perceived innocent nature but that belies her truest self. Laura immediately makes an enemy of Carmilla Karnstein, a European girl who’s all cigarettes and sharp looks, when she makes a brilliant first impression on the first day of the poetry seminar course they’re in together.
What follows is a dramatic tale of two talented poets who love to hate and hate to love. The passion in both their poetry and rivalry is something to behold. I’m really not a poetry reader, but this really made me want to go find a dark, angsty poetry collection to my book collection. Possibly the best part of this dark academia is that it happens to be set in the same world as S.T. Gibson’s novel, A Dowry of Blood. You know what that means? Vampires.
Professor De Lafontaine is in fact a vampire and Carmilla, as her favored and most trusted student, is also her source of blood. Carmilla fears losing her mentor’s trust and affection to Laura, which alongside the competitive nature of their poetry work, contributes to their rivalry. This wouldn’t be much of a fantasy story if the entire thing was just about two college girls hating and lusting after one another. There’s also an unrestrained vampire loose in the area murdering the Saint Perpetua’s girls that really turns this story up a notch.
I really enjoyed An Education in Malice and found I preferred this over A Dowry of Blood, which seems to be the opposite of how some other readers are feeling. I thought it was passionate and compelling, particularly the rivals to lovers aspect, which was done really well. Even the academia portion was great - it’s a story about a bunch of young college girls on their own for the first time in their lives and of course they’re sneaking around, going to parties, and even going on school holidays with their friends. It adds so much to the vibes that are often missing in books that claim to be “academia themed”. One last shout out to the focus on the characters’ sartorial choices, which is extra fabulous because this is set in the 1960s!

This book was beautiful, immersive, and everything I hoped it would be! The language with which it is written is so intricate, lovely, and paints a fantastic picture. The characters are so engaging and complex. While the ending is unendingly infuriating in its ambiguity, it completely fits with the narrative. The choices are left in the air. The reader gets to continue to think about this book however they want. The fantasy gets to continue.

thank you to netgalley for the arc!

wow every character in this is up to something! i found myself rooting for them, but also still acutely aware that these guys do NOT have equal power dynamics. De Lafontaine, the teacher; Carmilla, the senior; and poor Laura the freshman. they all hate each other and are deeply obsessed with each other . this makes sense if you read the book.

do not read this book if you are looking for a healthy, happy, college relationship book. they are vampires so i expected this, and i do love morally gray characters :)

fun book! the dark academia vibes are actually immaculate, and the aesthetic generally felt very secret-history-esque. not a retelling of carmilla, not not a retelling of carmilla, but something else entirely!

This was a captivating story of belonging, kinship, and deadly secrets. Laura and Carmilla are rivals in the deepest sense - both star pupils of the eccentric and beautiful Professor De Lafontaine. Rivals in academia and for the attentions of this enigmatic woman. And for each other, though that takes some time for them to figure out. Secrets lead to death and blood, but knowledge could either save them or send them spinning into a bloody and uncertain future. Only they can decide.

I wanted to like this book so much! I normally adore Dark Academia but this book couldn't quite grab my interest. The writing was really good but the characters and story fell flat. Unfortunately, this was not a good one.

The vibes were giving and I loved it. I cannot recommend this story enough if you're looking for something atmospheric

An Education in Malice is a fantastic Carmilla retelling that is filled with sapphic longing and tension. Laura Sheridan is a freshman who has been accepted into Professor DeLafontaine’s elite poetry class. The pace is grueling and the class rarely accepts freshmen. Laura quickly finds a rival in the beautiful Carmilla. As Laura learns about the affairs between Carmilla and their enigmatic professor, she must decide how many of their secrets she truly wants to know.

I was immediately interested when I saw this book was a Carmilla retelling and it did not disappoint! An Education in Malice is at times melancholy, filled with sapphic longing, and desire that sometimes slips into obsession. Laura and Carmilla have such a compelling relationship, especially as it grows from rivals to something more. The dark academia themes create a shadowy and atmospheric mood.

DeLafontaine and Carmilla share a twisted bond, with complicated power dynamics. When Laura becomes a factor, the strength of the connection between Carmilla and Laura is tested. It did take me a bit to feel emotionally invested in the characters, but I was fully hooked by the end. An Education in Malice is an enthralling and delightful Carmilla retelling. I would highly recommend it to anyone! If you enjoy complicated power dynamics, sapphic love, and dark academia then you should check out this book.

Thank you to S.T. Gibson, Redhook Books, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on Instagram, Goodreads, Amazon, Storygraph, and Barnes & Noble etc.

This definitely kept me curious and intrigued right to the end, and I really enjoyed the classic horror inspiration.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of the novel. 3/5 stars (maybe?)

It's a quick read, and it fulfills the dark academia gothic nature of another vampire retelling. I think I would have appreciated it (liked it?) more if I actually knew the Camilla story...but I don't. I do love Gibson's writing style - it's very atmospheric and sucks you in....but the rest of this was meh? It is more explicit than I anticipated (like...uhhh...the list of triggers?) but I really don't think there was a solid plot. But, sapphic vampire romance at an all-women's college in the 70s? Yeah...I did binge it though?

It's a complicated review.

I definitely will still check out more by this author although I didn’t like this much. I’m not into super “lusty” novels and this felt that way. The set up and setting were good then the actual plot line was boring The prose though, I believe I would like in a different story.

After the mild disappointment suffered from S.T. Gibson’s other new novel, Evocation, I had high hopes that An Education in Malice would fare as well for me as the author’s debut novel, A Dowry of Blood, and that the return to the theme of vampirism would re-create the lyrical writing that thad captivated me completely in that first book. But sadly that was not the case: I will have to add my disappointed review to the ones some of my fellow bloggers posted in the past few days….

The story, in a nutshell: Laura Sheridan arrives at the prestigious Saint Perpetua college to further her poetry studies under the tutelage of renowned professor De Lafontaine and she finds herself almost immediately put in competition with student Carmilla, who is clearly the teacher’s favorite. De Lafontaine, however, hides a dark secret and soon enough Laura will find herself enmeshed in a competitive triangle mixing academic learning and dark passions with unexpected consequences.

There is nothing that saddens me more than failed expectations, particularly where a review book I expressly requested is concerned, and after the amazing discovery that was A Dowry of Blood those expectations were quite high, but this book - like the other 2024 offering of the author, Evocation - did not stand the comparison with S.T. Gibson’s debut, a fact that made me wonder if the pressure of producing not one but two novels in the same year did not weigh too heavily on the author’s narrative powers. The novel is hailed as “sumptuous and addictive” but I would hesitate to use those terms because the prose, although still very close to the style used in Dowry, is certainly moodily descriptive but often fails in the dialogues that at times feel contrived, and rarely manage to convey any emotional layering from the characters.

As for the characters themselves, the relationship between Laura and Carmilla feels hurried, moving from hostile rivalry to insta-lust in too short a time to be truly believable: the novel unfolds by switching between the two girls’ POV, but their “voices” are too similar to offer any real difference between them, to the point that I often had to backtrack to the chapter’s beginning to confirm which one of them was relaying the events. The third point of the improbable “triangle”, that of professor De Lafontaine, constantly wavers between that of the oppressive adult who wields her power to abusive levels and that of the almost-mothering figure who still does not balk at taking advantage of her young charges. The revelation about the professor’s true nature as a vampire, and the impact it has on Carmilla directly and indirectly on Laura, is one that required a huge suspension of disbelief from me, because Laura’s almost passive acceptance of a situation that should have seen her run screaming for the hills is quite absurd.

My list of grievances could still run for a little while, but I see no reason to keep berating a story that seems to have captivated many other readers: clearly I’m not the intended audience for this book and I probably set the bar too high by expecting another compelling story as Dowry of Blood. Maybe someday in the future that will happen again….

2 stars

I really wanted to like this book, but unfortunately it was a complete miss for me, with a DNF at about the 50% mark.

I think the author did an excellent job of capturing the atmosphere of academia in the 1960s with the prose, characters, and dialogue; unfortunately, I'm not a fan of 60s culture or settings (unknown to me based on the synopsis I'd originally read). I also never clicked with either Laura or Carmilla, finding the latter pretentious and the former bland. I spent most of my time wondering where the angst was for Laura, who is unabashedly attracted to women. For Carmilla, it made sense that she was so comfortable in her sexuality based on her personality. And while there were instances of Laura worrying what others would think, I never got the sense that her sexuality was a real issue for her, in a religious college, in 1968.

(As an aside, I saw promotional art for the book before reading, and would've had no idea that Laura is a plus sized main character based on reading.)

As to the audiobook, which I listened to in tandem with reading the e-ARC, I had a few issues with the narration - namely that the Mississippi accent was not Mississippian, (and that that is NOT how you pronounce "cicada"). I was frequently taken out of the story focusing on the vague twang of Laura's POV, which I thought would've been really great if I was convinced it was authentic. As a positive, I did appreciate that I could differentiate between each character easily, and that emotion was put into all the characters.

The biggest sin of this book for me, though, was that I was just so incredibly bored while reading. I waited for anything to really happen, and then when something finally did, I felt nothing. I wasn't interested, I didn't care what was happening to any of the characters, and I asked myself "If I stopped right here, would it bother me that I never finished this book?" And I realized the answer was no.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing free access to ARCs of both the ebook and audiobook in exchange for my honest review

Laura and Carmilla are two young women attending St. Perpetua's College in Massachusetts. Both are intelligent, full of promise, and completely in the thrall of their poetry professor, the enigmatic Ms. De Lafontaine. While Carmilla has been De Lafontaine's protege (not only in the academic sense) for a few years, Laura is new on the scene. An intense rivalry begins between the two girls, only to be strategically spurred on by their beloved mentor. Their rivalry steadily begins to border on hatred until it gives way to passion. Laura becomes consumed by her poetry studies and her entire world seems to consist of De Lafontaine and Carmilla alone. Unfortunately De Lafontaine has a dark secret - one that she allows her two star pupils to become entwined in. Loyalties and trust will be tested and lives will be put on the line. Before the end, all three of them will have to make life-altering choices; choices that will carry even more weight when the word "life" is synonymous with "immortality."

I enjoyed this follow-up to A Dowry of Blood. I knew as soon as I finished S.T. Gibson's first novel I would be on the lookout for An Education in Malice, and Gibson did not disappoint as far as writing quality.

My hang-ups with the book have more to do with personal preference regarding plot decisions, and that makes this review difficult to formulate. After all, all book reviews come down to personal preference, don't they?

Laura and Carmilla's dynamic was exciting to follow and their chemistry was palpable. Initially I was all for it and how well their relationship was balanced with the mysterious, intimidating allure of De Lafontaine. But as things progressed, the horror and mystery aspects took a backseat to the protagonists' love story. I wanted more action, more backstory, more of Carmilla and Laura discovering their abilities as a powerful duo. Maybe that is still to come, in which case I'll be there - the ending certainly left that open as a possibility. De Lafontaine, on the other hand, was a complicated anti-hero type who was a pleasure to experience because of her constant unpredictability. Her murky motives kept me on edge the same way they did for the girls themselves.

While it definitely isn't necessary to read A Dowry of Blood prior to An Education in Malice, I do recommend it for a comprehensive understanding. An Education in Malice is available now; if you like spicy Sapphic romance, mystery, a little bit of horror, and dark academia this checks all the boxes.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of the eARC to review.

Tropes: Academic Rivals, Forced Proximity, Mentor/Mentee, Naive FMC, Made Family

Rep: Queer

Quote: "I wanted to knock her to the ground and pin her like a butterfly, I wanted to dig my teeth into her plush lower lip, I wanted, I wanted."

I enjoyed this book even though it did kind of have a slow start. I listened to A Dowry of Blood and really enjoyed this authors writing style- its very flowy and lyrical for me. I don't read a ton of dark academia but I have really enjoyed this story.

Laura and Carmilla are students at an all female college in the U.S. Laura has moved from a small town and she is naive due to that. Carmilla moved to the US from Austria so she could learn under the tutaliage of Madame De Lafontaine. When Ms.D takes Laura under her wing Carmilla gets jealous because for so long she has been the one person that Ms. D has to depend on...

- I do think that there was a massive abuse of power by Ms. D since she has taken advantage of the fact that Carmilla came to the college to learn from her then uses her.
-I think that Laura and Carmilla's relationship was interesting and I enjoyed how the went from rivals to lovers.
-The writing was interesting to read, but it did take me about 40% of the book to really get into the groove of the story.
-I would be intersted in reading more in this world and about their exploits with Magdelena during their summer abroad.
-The sire bond relationship was interesting in this book, and while I know it wasn't touched on a ton I was kind of wondering how Carmilla survived because she barely fed on anyone...

An Education in Malice was one of my most anticipated reads of the year and I was so excited to get an advanced copy. I devoured this book in just a couple of sittings and it certainly lived up to the hype. This Carmilla retelling was everything I wanted it to be. I was instantly swept up in the gothic and dark academia setting and immediately invested in the characters. Laura and Carmilla's romance was to die for and De Lafontaine was both swoon worthy and terrifying. Her controlling and manipulative behavior was never hidden from the characters or the reader and yet, we can't help but love her? I can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy.

Thank you @netgalley & @orbitbooks for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

“You and I are two sides of the same coin, Sheridan. I’m not sure how we were ever going to end up anywhere but here.”

3.75

When I found out An Education in Malice was based on Carmilla I knew I had to get my hands on it ASAP. This is my first S.T. Gibson book and I have to say her writing is just beautiful!!! I love the bisexual and lesbian rep.

This was a bit slow for me especially at first but I did enjoy the vibe of an all-girls college in the late 60’s with an academic rivalry between Laura and Carmilla. There is an attraction between them but their desperation for approval from their professor, De Lafontaine, was stronger. I knew their relationship was inevitable but it felt rushed to me how they got there.

An Education in Malice explores the toxic relationship between a teacher and her student and the power dynamics involved. I did not like De Lafontaine at all. I felt like the ending was too forgiving for her. After all the things Laura and especially Carmilla went through I don’t think what happened was punishment enough.

Thank you Netgalley and Redhook Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When future parish priest Laura Sheridan goes to Saint Perpetua’s College, she hopes to further her love for poetry and language while getting her needed degree for her future. There, she's one of the chosen few in the poetry seminar from the esteemed De Lafontaine. What she doesn't expect is to immediately be drawn in to a rivalry with the charming Carmilla Karnstein.

This book straddles the line between love, obsession and possession. There are valid trigger warnings as it is gruesome and explicit along with having unfair power dynamics and inappropriate student-teacher relationships. It of course draws heavily from the classic Carmilla, but it has interesting twists and changes from the original as well.

I greatly enjoyed the language of the book and the poetry, though I did wish that we got to delve more deeply into the characters themselves. A lot of the relationship changes seemed to happen extremely quickly and took me out of the story a bit a few times.

Thank you to NetGalley and Redhook Books for an advanced copy of An Education in Malice by S. T. Gibson, in exchange for an honest review.

An Education in Malice is something of a related story to Gibson's A Dowry of Blood, though the setting and characters are new. We follow two poetry students, Laura and Carmilla, at St. Perpetua's, a prestigious women's college in 1968. Carmilla almost immediately takes a dislike to Laura, whom she sees as a threat to her position as favorite of their poetry professor, the mysterious and mesmerizing Miss De Lafontaine. Laura becomes obsessed with Carmilla, secretly featuring the older girl in her dark, lustful poetry -- not that she shares these poems with anyone at first.

Gibson has once again produced a beautifully written and darkly sensual narrative about the imbalances of power in relationships, and graciously includes a list of content warnings at the beginning of the book. The dual perspective narration is superb, capturing the youthful innocence hiding darker proclivities of Laura, and the elegance and sophistication hiding desperate need of Carmilla. This was an excellent book.

This book had a very interview with a vampire meets sapphic dark academia feel to it! It was an interesting read. While I enjoyed it, I feel like it kind of jumped all over the place and I would have absolutely loved more spice!