I really enjoyed this book for many different reasons. The tension of enemies to lovers, academic rivalry, and vampires. What else can you ask for really.

3.5 stars
I went into this novel knowing very little about the novella Carmilla so I can't speak to this novels accuracy but I will say that I enjoyed it for what it was. A dark academia(ish), rivals to lovers that also had vampires.

An Education in Malice is set a women's college in the late 1960s and told in alternating perspectives from both Laura and later Carmilla. The novel opens with Laura's arrival on campus and quickly encountering Carmilla at the welcome bonfire. The two are both enrolled in a poetry workshop led by the eccentric and demanding professor DeLafontaine. Carmilla and DeLafontaine have an unusual (perhaps inappropriate) relationship compounded by their evening poetry workshops at the professor's apartment. Laura is quickly invited to join their little group but of course things take a turn for the bloody.

The novel kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading it. There was just such an air of foreboding throughout. I'm not sure it totally paid off but I enjoyed it none the less.

Minor spoilers but I couldn't totally figure out the relationship between DeLaFontaine and Carmilla and who was getting the most out of it. I'll leave it at that to avoid spoiling it more but definite questions on their relationship.

I am not usually a fan of horror but Gibson is such a fantastic writer I will definitely check out more of their books in the future.

I was provided a free copy of this book through NetGalley.

If you want a book that is basically "no plot, just vibes," then this is the book for you

Thinking back on this book feels like a fever dream, and while I'm not exactly mad at it, I'm wondering where the true storyline was. Of course, I recognize this is a personal taste of mine--I like books to have a solid plot over mere vibes. If I had gone in expecting just vibes, then I would've enjoyed it a lot more. But unfortunately, from the blurb, I expected high stakes, lots of tension, and how the sinister game of politics manifested into the actual storyline.

Instead, the book focuses on the push and pull from Professor De Lafontaine, Carmilla, and Laura, and it goes around and around until the end. The professor is also hiding a lot of secrets, and nothing really comes to light, with the exception of the midpoint and the climax of the novel. Everything in between are just scenes strung together that didn't really make sense in the grand scheme of the story in the background--aka, Professor De Lafontaine and her past.

There are literal dead bodies to investigate, a murderer / creature out in the open, there are vampires, and a power struggle like no other. And yet, this book went by giving us glimpses of everything while focusing more on the scenes where each character showed devotion to each other. Scenes where they recited poetry, where they stayed cooped up in Professor De Lafontaine's apartment, etc. It felt like a big montage of the school year.

Moreover, I was under the impression that Laura Sheridan was our main character, as she's the new girl at Saint Perpetua's and she was starting to get fully fleshed out in the beginning. But as the book went on, I feel like her character kind of faded out in favor of the vampire arc coming from Carmilla and Professor De Lafontaine. I wanted to see Laura wrestling with her wants more and more, but she just kind of did everything without ever confronting her feelings or her upbringing. I had even found her want to become ordained interesting, but that was forgotten until the very end of the book where it was mentioned again. Honestly, with everything going on, I felt like Carmilla and Professor De Lafontaine were a much bigger presence than Laura.

Despite all of that, I will say the vibes were great. It was true dark academia, flitting from poem to poem, all with lush language to go with it. It was also very easy to read, the pages basically read themselves.

I think my biggest thing here is that I wish there had been a stronger story, more motivation from the characters, because I really loved the characters. They were fleshed out, fun to read about, and interesting to see on the page, but I don't think they were given the room to stretch and shine.

Overall, a great story about power dynamics and wonderful dark academia vibes!

Not sure how I felt about the adult and the way she treated and manipulated the young women in this book. I was left with a blah feeling after I finished. I do love gothic academia and the scenes and settings were set up nicely. I felt as though I was in the riom.

I really liked a dowry of blood and now I really liked An Education in Malice. It offers everything you want to have in a dark academia novel while exploring the power dynamics of relationships, how far you would go for love and how difficult it is to emancipate yourself. This happens very subtle most of the time, the author has a delicate kind of style, that’s enjoyable to read. It also has a great atmosphere from the start.
I deducted one star as the number of up and downs in the portrayed relationships became a bit excessive towards the end.
Over all a great book I would recommend.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the earc!

Thanks to Netgalley and Redhook Books for the ARC in exchange for the honest review.

My actual rating would be a 4.5/5 stars.

Gibson really developed the lush gothic atmosphere around the characters and the very intimate longing throughout the book was lovely. I could really feel the yearning coming off the page. I would have loved to see a smidge more in terms of Laura and Carmilla's rivalry but it was still really well done. No one in the narrative is perfect but they are all messy and complex with their own motivations.

I overall really enjoyed it and would recommend it if you enjoy all the various tropes within it.

St Gibson's prose is so romantic and atmospheric, and I found this book really easy to get into. The characters are introduced in such a dynamic way that you immediately know who they are, and what their vibes are. I found the relationship dynamics so interesting, and really enjoyed the growth of all three of our main characters. I did like having dual POVs, but towards the end having both seemed a little superfluous.

I found myself a little bored with this one halfway, and it did pick up a little after that but also-- I felt that it could've been shorter or more concise. OR, it could've included more background on Ms. D because I was so interested in her as a character, but felt we only got to know her on a superficial level.

This was a 3.5ish stars for me, rounded up to 4 which pains me because I've loved all other St Gibson books.

Wow I loved this. The tension built between Carmilla and Laura from the first meeting was engrossing and so beautifully written. I loved that the predatory undertones from the original story were translated into a teacher/student relationship and the relationship between Carmilla and Laura was allowed to be sapphic and messy. Gibson's prose continues to delight me and I kept highlighting passages until i didn't want to stop reading in order to do it. I don't know that this will be for everyone, but for anyone who enjoys dark academia, vampires or messy sapphics, this will really hit.

Another beautifully written story by Gibson. A Sapphic, dark academia, rivals-to-lovers novel written so beautifully it nearly made me cry at the end. I adored the chemisty Carmilla and Laura had with each other and their rivalry being instantaneous with their inner monologs basically just being what they admired about the other. And De Lafontaine playing a role in it all just made it so delightful. There are so many layers to this story I don't even have the proper words to describe it all. Easily one of the most well written novels I've read.

Oh my god, I devoured this book. I haven't read A Dowry of Blood but I am eager to read that next! Gibson's prose is luscious and I caught myself marveling over her sweeping passages again and again. This was the perfect read for a snowy day, I could've devoured another hundred pages!

And honestly...perhaps that's what it needed? Carmilla and Laura's relationship was so obsessive and magnetic, their chemistry leaped off the page. Yet by the 60ish% mark I felt as if their character growth was left in the background as Gibson worked to wrap up the loose end and mystery she'd set into motion earlier. It results in a rather rushed and not entirely satisfactory ending.

But overall? This got me out of what was a potential reading slump. I haven't stayed up late, riveted to the pages like this in a while. I'm excited to read more by this author and can't wait to see more people talking about An Education in Malice!

An Education in Malice is going to be one of 2024's top dark academia books. I never thought I'd find myself reading another vampire book, but after reading about fae last year, this was a refreshing take. What I loved about this book is that it isn't necessarily focused entirely on vampirism. The main storyline follows two college students and a professor.

Camilla is a senior, Laura is a freshman, and De LaFontaine is the poetry professor. Camilla and De LaFontaine have a very obsessive relationship where they both are codependent off of each other. At the beginning of this book, I was prepared for a teacher/student relationship, and multiple moments make it seem like the sexual tension is high. But Laura came into the group, invited by the professor because she is a gifted writer. Very secret history if we were villains coded. Camilla and Laura are enemies due to them both fighting over De LaFontaine's attention and love.

This book took lots of twists and turns, and the three main characters all get so much depth and character development that I love it. Overall, it was a very dark and obsessive read, but I love my dark academia,

Did I mention the professor is a vampire?!

The ending was wrapped up nicely, and I won't spoil it, but I did find myself feeling like it was a little rushed. Overall, thank you, NetGalley, for approving this ARC for me to read :) I can't wait to buy the first copy and perhaps even the 2nd book.

2024: Lesbian vampires are in yall

I'm not quite sure what I expected with this. I was pulled in by the lull of drama and dark academia, and instead found the toxicity of abuse and manipulation at the hands of an adult towards a young impressionable girl, and an even younger girl. their elicit relationships were wound tightly together by first their hatred, and then their common ground of being under the nail of the same woman, who constantly belittled them but then pulled them back in with the promise of love and praise. It was truly a sick power dynamic and very far removed from its original.

This story was a retelling of Carmilla, a vampire sapphic novel which predated Stoker's Dracula by around 25 years. But what I read held none of the same reverence as Carmilla did, and only sought to fill me with dread, unable to hold my attention long enough before I felt like throwing up.

This dark academia spin on the classic novella, Carmilla, has all the gothic vibes and queer vampirism of the original and will surely appeal to Gibson's many loyal fans as well as readers looking for queer voices in paranormal romance and fantasy. Given that the original work is only a hundred pages, An Education in Malice relies more on vibes than a propulsive plot, but those vibes are excellent.

As a lesbian poet, reading about other lesbian poets was such a treat…

This book was such a pleasant surprise. Going into it I was afraid that I wouldn’t enjoy it much, but once I got into it I REALLY got into it.

This is a story that focuses on obsession. Carmilla, Laura, and De Lafontaine are all very interesting characters, and their relationships with each other were written in such a way that I often found myself getting chills. They were all hopelessly devoted to each other in such an intense way.

I read most of this story in one sitting, and I got through it fairly quickly. The prose was simple enough to understand while also managing to be beautifully profound. It was a nice homage to the original ‘Carmilla’ as well as to numerous other classics and the dark academia genre as a whole.

However, I did find the ending of the story to be a little bit rushed. I felt as though S.T. Gibson wasn’t really sure how to wrap the story up, and opted to give the happiest ending without much regard for the plot as a whole. The last few chapters of the book felt like a sloppy attempt to close out the story rather than a satisfying conclusion to the journey the characters all went on.

Overall, this story was such a nice, quick read, and I can honestly say that I was completely hooked. I’ll definitely need to check out Gibson’s other books after this one.

Did you watch Dead Poets Society and think, “I wish this was sapphic, toxic, and full of vampires”? If so, may I present An Education in Malice.
This was a beautifully written dark academia, sapphic vampire story with unhealthy and toxic relationships, but also first love, the angst of youth, and the need to feel seen. It was great, will definitely be adding Gibson’s Dowry of Blood to my TBR. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

When I say I wasn’t sure this would be my vibe, that’s honesty. When I also tell you that I could not put this down for even a moment, that’s true too.

Gibson’s writing made me feel like I was truly in another place, another time, and it was the perfect read for escapism. The dynamic between Laura, Carmilla, and De Lafontaine was incredible. There were moving parts throughout the story, and I never wanted it to end.

Of course, books end and I was completely satisfied with the arc of the story, and the conclusion.

An Education in Malice is the easiest five star rating I’ve given this year. Dark and clever and incredibly written, I hope I’ll pick up a physical copy in the future so I can annotate it.

Some books feel like they’re inspired by others, which is great. But this felt entirely new and unlike books I’ve read before. I love S.T. Gibson’s voice in writing and can’t wait to pick up more books by them.

“She kissed me with a martyr’s agonized desperation, like I was the only sword she ever wanted to fall on. I kissed her right back like the cutting edge of a blade, trying to inflict as much damage as possible.”

Thank you to netgalley and orbit books for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

At first glance, this book should’ve been everything I look for in a novel but it fails to adhere to just one genre, becoming a mess of intensions. This novel started off so strong, but as one of my most anticipated reads, I was expecting more from it and felt it didn’t meet up to my expectations and began to falter as the story went on.

The one big thing I could appreciate about this novel is that at its core it is an ode to the classics. Beside being a carmilla retelling, there are references to Dante’s inferno, and the entire gothic literature and dark academia genre as a whole, using many of the same themes I have grown to love in any vampire tale such as vamprism and hunger as a metaphor for love- for needing someone so much that the hunger cannot be quenched. The idea that devouring someone means to possess them.

Overall, I think this novel is attempting to be so many things at once: a love letter to girlhood, dark academic, vampirism, that often there is just so much going on once that none of the selected genres meet their full potential, always shoving aside one another, leaving it feeling cluttered. The murder mystery isn’t much of a mystery, leaving the looming danger feeling distant, and almost nonexistent. The enemy is revealed pretty early on, ultimately in my eyes, ridding the characters of the one true villain, because you can see them coming from a mile away, making the dark academia aspect of this novel feel scattered and incomplete. Where is the true threat? The true mystery?

The connection between Laura and Carmilla is often dimmed by the professor, who I think just complicates the romance aspects of this storyline. Carmella’s devotion to the professor seems to always trump everything else, even her connection with Laura, which I believe should be the focus.

I don’t feel the undying love I’m meant to feel- the life or death romance that I believe the author intended to go for. Carmilla and Laura often come off as whiny and childish, in the shadow of the professor, never meeting their full potential. As a result, this often made the writing in some aspects, seem childish itself. The writing felt very inconsistent, sometimes beautiful and lovely and other times the opposite. There were lines etched into my brain like beautiful calligraphy. For example, Laura notes that the blue ribbon in Carmillas hair resembles the color of her veins. It was imagery like this that brought the book to life, to allow me to picture it perfectly but ultimately beautiful prose and imagery weren’t enough to save this book, in terms of plot and characterization for me.

When Laura first meets Carmilla there is a mysterious air about her, a dignified puzzle waiting to be solved that soon is replaced by a childish, jealous girl that only listens to the praise or scolding of her professor.

Their relationship with the professor seems, at times, romantic and sensual and at other points she comes off as a scolding mother figure who must hold their hands as if they would lose their way without her. I couldn’t wrap my mind around this oddity and how it seemed to be ever changing. At times Carmilla was infatuated with the professor and at others couldn’t stand the sight of her. She never seemed to make up her mind,

The romance between Laura and Caemilla flowed in a similar fashion. They hated each other one moment and loved each other the next which made the romance feel forced instead of flowing in a natural way. While I do acknowledge the line between love and hate is a thin one, as well as the continued example of contrasting ideologies as a theme, the relationship seemed to spark out of nowhere, taking even them by surprise.

One of the many things that took me out of the lore of the novel was that the physical traits of vampires didn’t seem to match up. They held so much strength in some moments and none in others, even after they had fed. It was as if the author picked which moments they kept these traits intact and seemed to forget about them all together the next.

I felt much of the execution fell flat for me. Perhaps I had hyped this book up in the months before reading so much that I am the responsible for my own disappointment but I just wanted more from it. Ultimately, I believe that there are a few positive things to take away from this novel, but just as many negative. While this book wasn’t for me, I do believe others can find a sense of enjoyment out of it.



“They had plunged headfirst into the darkness and the darkness had nearly swallowed them up.”

This was really good! It’s so compulsively readable, I got through it in around 2.5 hours total. These kinds of stories are exactly what I love. Obsession, love, and murder. Plus, it’s sapphic!

The writing was beautiful, and the premise was promising, but about 40% in, the plot was completely lost. I really wanted to love this one, but it was just okay. I was excited for academic rivals to lovers, which ended up being pretty anticlimactic as they just fell into their relationship rather easily. The professor was like a jealous, predatory, older girlfriend who we didn't get enough backstory on to see her as anything but that. A whole lot of nothing happened throughout the middle section of the book, and for such a lack of plot I typically look for a deeper dive into the characters. I was disappointed and ended up feeling no connection to either of them. The solution to the problem came out of nowhere in the last 10% of the book and was quite predictable. Finished this one rather underwhelmed.

I think this is a fantastic continuation of the A Dowry of Blood world without shoving it down your throat. There is a very brief mention of characters that lets you know its set in the same world pretty far along in the book. Because of that I think S.T. Gibson really let the characters in her reimagining of Carmilla stand on their own. The characters felt well fleshed out and had clear motivations from start to finish with growth that made sense for their original motivations but also that took an interesting twist. It was a pretty quick read and I appreciate that words weren't wasted on daily activities that go on and on - a week could pass and the next scene we get would fit perfectly without the mundane day to day catch up some authors tend to include.