I absolutely love S.T. Gibson’s writing style - A Dowry of Blood remains my favorite but this one is equally compelling and well written. The gothic dark academia setting combined with vampires was perfect, and the sapphic enemies to lovers romance was very well executed.

Both MCs were great - Laura was full of surprises and Carmilla was alluring and complex. The two of them have to deal with complicated student/teacher relationships, ancient vampires, murders on campus, and feelings of jealousy and obsession.

I did find the ending to be a little anticlimactic, although the last chapter made up for it a bit. I really enjoyed this as a whole though and would recommend it if you’re a fan of vampires and dark academia.

Thank you to Redhook Books for the ARC!

POLY SAPPHIC BUT WITH VAMPIRES. do I need to say more????

4⭐️
1🌶️

ST Gibson is a one my few auto buy authors because her books never disappoint. She has such a beautiful romantic way of writing that feels so nice to read and I’m not normally someone who cares about that kind of stuff.

An education in malice is a poly sapphic vampire and it’s one of the best ff I’ve read. I’m so picky with my ff and this book doesn’t disappoint.

I loved this book and I love this author!

Thank you to netgalley and red hook for an arc of this book!

I am actually at a loss of words after reading this…because I both loved it and hated it at the same time! The writing is beautiful and the story and unraveling of the plot was poetic, but I also felt it was very anticlimactic. Yet, this was almost a part of the beauty of the writing, it didn’t need to be climactic to flow so wonderfully.
This book definitely has left me in a flurry of thoughts and speechlessness. I thoroughly enjoyed it and couldn’t put it down, but I don’t even know how to feel about the actual story itself. The writing is too profound to give it less than 4 stars but the story itself prevented me from wanting to give it 5 stars.

“After all, what horror wouldn’t I tolerate, if it was meted out by the hand of my beloved?”

Laura arrives at Saint Perpetua’s girls college, and is immediately thrown into an obsessive rivalry with the most beautiful and mysterious girl in school, Carmilla. Meanwhile, their domineering poetry teacher De Lafontaine has Carmilla in a two way chokehold that eventually threatens to strangle all three of them. The vortex around these three women results in love, sex, obsession, and bloodshed.

- - - - - - - - - -

Taking the already deeply powerful femininity of Carmilla and retelling it in this way was a stroke of genius. In the authors acknowledgements they said it was a fight to get this story on paper but let me tell you… they won the fight.


You should read this if you’re looking for: dark academia, sapphic, vintage, eerie, bloody, obsessive romance, complicated entanglements, and vampires.

There is a lot to love about this book. It does one of my favourite things a book can do, which is give you overwhelming conflicting emotions. How can I be viscerally revolted and titillated and uncomfortable all at the same time? How did you do that? The tension between unbalanced manipulative obsession and more wholesome romantic obsession was fascinating. And also..uncomfortable. While there is “action” in this book, it’s the relationships between the three characters that really shine. It’s not a pure character study, but it really could be - that’s how strong portrayed these characters and their relationships are.

My only negatives are: 1) Laura’s character felt a bit flat, but Carmilla and De Lafontaine are SUCH strong characters that Laura had a lot of competition, 2) I wish Carmilla and Laura’s rivalry to romance arc had been more drawn out had the book been longer, and 3) I would’ve loved more side character action, had the book been longer.

I LOVED this book; this is one of my 2023 best reads. I'm not normally into romance, but the romance here is very convincing. I was hooked right from the start, and I could actually feel their attraction (even though I don't share their orientation). There were some moments in the romance development that I thought could have been more convincing or presented better, but overall, everything worked wonderfully. The tension, the pining, the grudging admiration, the worship -- it's everything a good rivals-to-lovers stories can hope for.

The prose is drop dead gorgeous. This is a dark academia book with characters that study and write poems, and the prose renders that convincingly. Laura's first poem we see in an early chapter? It honestly made me gasp. It's exactly like what De Lafontaine says about her: beautiful and visceral, but accessible. The whole book feels like that, to me. It's an immersion in beauty, and one that doesn't make me work for it in an exhausting way. It's not a coy book; it's one that screams in an operatic thrill.

And the characters! They are so, so alive. Everyone is drawn in such colorful details; I think that's the secret of it. They might be driven by ambitions (if the academic rivals trope could be reduced to that), but in the end, the intricate details in which that ambition is drawn for each character is what makes them come alive. Carmilla's vulnerability wrapped up in arrogance; Laura's fierceness hidden behind angelic coyness; De Lafontaine's brittleness underneath her knife-sharp elegance. These are portraits to remember.

I love this book to pieces and I am over the moon that I was able to get my hands on it before the release date in February. I loved the poetry and the twists and turns and how the author really made you feel like you had dropped into the gothic setting that she created. I love her work and will be reading everything she puts out.

Another banger from S.T. Gibson! This was amazing. Very different from A Dowry of Blood but in the same vein as well. This isn’t so much the second book in a series, it simply contains a character from DOB. Gibson’s writing is so beautiful without being pretentious. I loved the academic setting and a good academic rivals to lovers is my spot of tea.

We follow Laura Sheridan as she starts her first semester at Saint Perpetua’s Women’s College. She’s a literature major and loves writing. She sees and interacts with the lovely Carmilla briefly at a bonfire and is instantly entranced.

Admittedly I am not usually drawn to FF romances. I’m not sure what it is about them but it’s just not usually a preference of mine. I did enjoy this however. Plenty of twists and action and though the resolution of the conflict was a bit predictable I am happy with it all the same.

It’s a huge recommend if you like dark academia, rivals, and vampires.

Thank you NetGalley and Orbit books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

There were many times that this book was very reminiscent of A Dowry of Blood. The way that S.T. Gibson is able to create these toxic and abusive relationships that make your gut churn for the characters is truly masterful. Where A Dowry of Blood is a tale of strength and taking your power back, I felt that is where this book lacked. It also was missing the same atmospheric and lyrical writing style that I loved so much in A Dowry of Blood. While I was happy that De Lefontaine was able to grow in the end and release the girls from their toxic relationship, it left me wishing they were able to take back their power similarly to how Constanta did. I felt that Laura and Carmillal lacked any character development and in the end never got to pull themselves out from under the thumb of their manipulator. The entire time I was anxious and sick to my stomach over the relationship between the two young girls and their professor, and while a part of me can appreciate the happy ending, I was expecting a more powerful conclusion to that relationship.

I also felt it was hard to truly enjoy Carmilla and Laura’s relationship because their characters felt very shallow and I had a hard time connecting with them.

With all of that said, I did devour this book in 24 hours and I think that many vampire and dark academia fans would enjoy this book.

Thank you Netgalley & the Redhook and Orbit team for providing me with this arc in exchange for my honest review!

No thoughts. Head empty. Just sapphic vampires.

Viscerally lovely, fiercely romantic (and some GOOD SPICE), with a take on vampires + dark academia that's somehow both fresh and classic. I loved the moral greyness, the gorgeous characterization, the old-fashioned voiciness, and the WANT threaded throughout. It's not a retelling of CARMILLA so much as a reinvention--it's the gothic sapphic tale that we all deserve.

I loved it. I want to eat this book.

Laura and Carmilla's chemistry. They. Are. Insane. The tension. The pining. The girls' emotional turmoil at realizing they are in love with the one person that is out of reach. The annoyance towards each other turning into the desire to possess each other completely. The kisses. The secret touches. The confessions. Oh my god, the confessions. They were adorable. I do have one gripe however: while there always is an undercurrent of lust in all their interactions, even at the beginning, they go straight from dislike to being in love. It's not a gradual process; you flip one page and suddenly they're in love with each other. ?? When did this happen? And yes, the relationship itself is established towards the final pages, but they are actually *in love* at around 30%. It's not that bad, in terms of enjoyment, as you can still see on page the progress of their relationship and the pining (I am a sucker for pining and forbidden romance), but it is still bizarre. Anyway.

Moving on to everything else. An Education of Malice was surprisingly fun. The 20% mark is when the characters begin to develop chemistry, the writing magically gets better (it's like two different books meshed together), and the plot becomes interesting. Okay, this is a lie. There is no plot. The nonromance part of the book is very much just an outline with little depth: evil person shows up → evil person does evil things → evil person gets whacked. The end. There's a little backstory (with a certain Dowry character making an appearance!! I was giggling and kicking my feet.), but not one I had much emotional connection to. It was cute, but I am indifferent. But then again. I don't care about plot. I picked this up for Laura and Carmilla, and they delivered everything I thought they would.

Okay, so the first 20%. I will always love the academic rivals to lovers trope, and I have never not liked a mean girl. However, if your mean girl's entire reason for being mean is the teacher praising the new girl *one time*, this loser behavior being the sole basis of the supposed "rivalry," with all her dialogue coming out of a wattpad y/n fic, then throw the whole thing away. Thankfully, after around 20%, there was barely a hint of the mean girl persona or the rivalry. Technically, this book was never academic rivals, nor does it really have anything with academia. It is set at a college, yes, but the plot revolves around two girls who crave approval from a vampire who just happens to be a professor. LaFontaine could have been a pilot or a housewife, and it wouldn't change anything about the plot except the setting. Personally, I don't care about tropes either way, but the attempt at a rivalry at the beginning was so atrociously written I had to force myself to not dnf. The inner monologue and dialogue was elementary school level for both girls. I don't know what happened after the first fifth of the book was finished, but whatever it was, thank you for your service. The writing was not Dowry level even then, but I think almost everything will be underwhelming compared to Dowry, so cutting a little slack.

3.5 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy.

"If communion was the most carnal of the sacraments, confession was the most cathartic."

There better be a seatbelt in the confessional because after reading this book, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are fall straight outta their seat. I'm gonna use this review for some serious catharsis.

First off, I know nothing about Carmilla or whatever character this book is an homage to that reviews are lauding over. What I know as my plebeian self is when a work of fiction blows your heart all over the floor and you are left to clean up the mess. It was brilliant.

"I've always had the strangest instinct to run towards whatever is hurting me, to bare my neck to any predator that caught my scent, and that instinct was even stronger in times of crisis."

The relationship between Professor and student is some amalgamation of obsession, worship, mother daughter, teacher pupil, lust and love, D/s with zero lines crossed. It is perplexing and it left me wanting more. More what? I don't know. I'm still deliciously confused.

Carmilla and Laura, your enemy to lovers special, but what's a vampire book without bloodlust and enigmatic intrigue? Throw in a buried pile of lover bones, an awakening that even the reader regrets, a touch of Christmas spirit, a makeshift family of the undead, and there you have this sensual vamp book that'll make you flush as much as it makes you wonder what comes next!

"Save your rage, darling.
You'll need it, in this life."

Amen.

I think this book just isn’t meant for me. I had high hopes after a dowry of blood, but I’m going to DNF at 25% and maybe??? pick it up again some other time.

The writing in this one falls so short of the author’s first book, and the dialogue feels wooden and inauthentic. I’m also having trouble caring about any of the characters. I’m not really interested in what will happen to them or how they think about things.

Maybe it’s a dark academia thing; I’ve never been super drawn to that kind of premise.

Laura leaves home in Mississippi to attend Saint Perpetua’s College for girls. Here she finds herself immersed in a selective poetry class taught by the demanding Ms. De Lafontaine, competing for her praise against her talented rival, Carmilla. As the semester goes on, darkness is unleashed onto the campus and Laura finds herself in a dangerous entanglement.

This retelling of Carmilla checks all my boxes!
✅ Dark Academia
✅ Academic Rivals to Lovers
✅ Slow Burn
✅ VAMPIRES
✅ QUEER
If there was ever a book written specifically for me, this is it.

I am forever in awe of @stgibsonauthor ‘s prose and talent with words. Such a spectacular job at making Saint Perpetua come to life with its gothic architecture and diverse, unique, and unforgettable students.

The romance in this one was such a slow burn, but it absolutely paid off. No insta-love here! Carmilla and Laura were such an interesting dynamic, it was not what I was expecting, but it worked well! I loved their story and how their relationship develops.

If you like dark academia, academic rivals to lovers, VAMPIRES, and a queer love story, then An Education in Malice comes out February 14th, 2024!

I requested this book because it was being talked about in an ARC discord that I am in. (Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review)

I didn’t know anything about the plot, I don’t think I even read the synopsis. It is set in the same world as Dowry of Blood (which I have also not read) and is a Carmilla retelling, (which I have never heard of before this) All this to say that I went in totally blind.

The book is well written and very atmospheric. It is dark academia with vampires. There were parts that made me uncomfortable. Unhealthy and toxic relationships abound, but overall, it was able to hold my attention enough for me to say I liked it.

A seemingly timid, bookish, small town girl with repressed carnal desires encounters more than she anticipated when leaving home to attend St. Perpetua’s. The ‘more’ being the tempestuous and beguiling Carmilla, dark intrigue, and her own sexual awakening. It includes dark academia, enemies to lovers, and a morally grey mentor.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters had depth and development, complex emotions and good chemistry built through tension and tentative exploration. The plot was well paced, though at times I was left wanting more detail or backstory to some characters or aspects. What I enjoyed most of about this book, however, was the beautiful prose that created detailed imagery and allowed for me to picture each scene in my mind while reading. Overall, I thought it was fantastically written and had a uniqueness by being set in the 60’s. Where it was lacking for me was the climax- I wanted to be on the edge of my seat and didn’t quite get there. The climax felt a bit rushed and didn’t grip me as much as I would have liked.

This is a dark tale of obsession. Of the jealousy and manipulation and toxicity in relationships, of the cycles of abuse.

But this is also a story of finding inner strength and true friendships.

And blood.

Written in the same universe as A Dowry of Blood, this story takes place on an all girls college campus. It's told in dual POV and I would likely call the writing romantic, though the prose is neither as purple nor as cutting as its predecessor. But also like its predecessor-- it ends with hope.

A dark academia tale with much in common with House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson, I would definitely recommend this to readers who enjoyed that novel.

I adored this book. Was it different than A Dowry of Blood? Yes. Did I love it all the same, for everything it is? Also yes. If I wanted a book exactly like A Dowry of Blood, I would have just reread A Dowry of Blood (although I did appreciate the cameo!!!). An Education in Malice broke me out of a weeks-long reading slump. It was dark, atmospheric, and sexy, and I read it in two sittings - I simply couldn't put it down.

This sapphic, gothic story takes place within a world of dark academia and vampirism. School rivals, Laura Carmilla, vie for the attention of their poetry professor, De Lafontaine, who holds a dark secret that only Carmilla is privy to. As attraction between Laura and Carmilla turns into comradery and then into potential love, secrets are unveiled and boundaries are pushed.

This novel was enjoyable from start to finish. The writing style, language, and utilization of poetry was beautiful. The main characters were complex and had interesting internal commentary.

I'm giving this 4 stars instead of 5 because I would have loved if Gibson had delved even more into the characters psyche and development. I loved what she wrote about them and it stoked my interest in learning more about them. I also would have loved to learn more about De Lafontaine and Isis' relationship.

I've already recommended this to multiple people and will continue doing so!

Thank you NetGalley and Gibson for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Erotic horror is a genre blend I discovered this year because of A Dowry of Blood, and I don’t think I can go back. There’s something so alluring about these stories. It’s the illicit seductiveness, the romantic villains, the strange mix of the macabre and the sexual, and the often gothic atmospheres that turn these stories into something you just can’t look away from.

As expected, ST Gibson knocked it out of the park once again. An Education in Malice had me hooked from beginning to end. The writing was immaculate without feeling overdone. I was immersed in the story and the main characters’ headspace, with all the atmosphere and beautiful description that I associate with this author.

Thanks to Netgalley and Redhook for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

I adored A Dowry of Blood by ST Gibson and was so excited when I was approved for the second book in the series. The writing just works for me. I was immediately drawn into the story and couldn't stop flipping the pages. It is a dark academia book following Carmilla (vampires) and LGBTQIA+. Tons of buzz words. It is very atmospheric and a fast read. If you enjoyed A Dowry of Blood, I would highly recommend picking this book up. I keep wondering if another book is coming out in the series cause I would 110% read.

4 Stars

**Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced review copy. All opinions are my own.**