DNF at 36% :( I wanted to LOVE this one...it sounds like Ninth House x The Secret History, and I was completely on board. I absolutely love the dark academia fantasy aesthetic, and I thought this would be the perfect read for early October.

Unfortunately I couldn't get through it, and I may or may not have dozed off a bit while reading this on the plane. The plot was 100% there, and that's why I continued reading until page like 165. It seemed to have the perfect combination of world-building, mystery, and fantasy. And the focus on students harnessing the power of persuasion was so intriguing. However, I personally felt so detached from all of the characters. There wasn't a single character I really liked, other than maybe Dante? In a book like this, the characters need to be complex and you need to have a strong sense of their motivations at the academy. The characters just feel flat, and I wasn't able to continue reading.

Thank you so much to Berkley for sending me an ARC of An Academy for Liars. As always, my reviews are one hundred percent voluntary and all opinions are my own :)

When Lennon receives a mysterious call inviting her to take the entrance exam for Drayton College, she thinks this may be the escape she needs from her unhappy life. Once accepted in the school, she quickly realizes her great powers of persuasion. Under the instruction of her advisor, Dante, Lennon must decide her role within Drayton or if she’ll even have one. For fans of paranormal horror.

I don't know how to feel about this one... the story was interesting for a while but around the 70% mark I was bored and felt drug along. The story will go along and then all of a sudden weeks and months have passed. Lennon is screwed over this whole time, first by her fiancé, next by Dante her mentor at the school who she also has caught feelings for and also by "friends" at said school. I almost felt like Lennon while reading this, just being drug a long with no real explanation of what is going on or what the point even is.

In this school your application begins the day that you are born and only those who possess the innate ability of persuasion are accepted.

3.6 stars

I want to start off this review in saying that I really wanted to like this book. It had a magicians vibes/dark academia. However I felt that this book fell flat in the character development. The connection between the two main characters (Lennon and Dante) was not there. Even if their love was supposed to be "forbidden" it felt like a forced connection and was painful to read.

The magic system seemed as if it was not very well fleshed out. It spoke a lot with dealing with psychology and the mind but the overall feeling of the school and the magic system was that it was an excuse to cause harm and distress to each other. It felt as if the faculty "discouraged" violence but then did not have any consequences for it as long as the students were not a direct danger to the school.

As far as Lennon being the "chosen one" it was as if the school wanted to get rid of her repeatedly through out the novel just for her to become the most important part of the school in the end.

There were a lot of scenes of gore and violence the felt as if it was there primarily for the shock value of the violence and not the necessity to move the plot along. Characters back stories had little to no consequence to the overall arc of the story, or felt thrown in and did not truly add to the plot. It also felt as if certain characters actions were contradictory in themselves.

I feel as if I may be overly critical with this book as I may not have been the target audience, however, it was not a book that I would have finished had I not been chosen for the ARC.

If you would like my FULL review you can find that on our podcast Just One More Page anywhere you can find a podcast.

Holy Hot Damn!

Have you ever read a book that just had you completely turned around?

I love romantic suspense, but I’m super picky about my thrillers. This book though. 😮‍💨 Whew! This book was one hell of a ride. It’s like a mix of Eyes Wide Shut, Get Out, and Magicians (the sci-fi show).
The plot was fast paced and there were several points where I thought I knew where the story was going, only for it to approach a specific topic or destination and veer off course. By the end I didn’t know what to think, who to trust, or how it was all going to play out.

🎙️This was another tandem read where I read the ebook from Netgalley while listening to the audiobook from PRH Audio. The book was exceptionally well written in a single POV with one narrator and stuck to the script for the most part. So it was easy to follow along and I was able to really enjoy the narrator’s storytelling abilities. Tracie has this deep dulcet tone that’s almost hypnotic, and she does several very convincing southern accents.

All the Stars!

⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️🌟🌶️
💙💙💙💙💙
Out Now (Sept 17, 2024)

Thriller | Romantic Suspense:
Psychological Thriller
Dark Academia (College)
Magic (sort of)
Undertones of racial inequality and injustice
Ambiguous love interest (at first)
Secret society (controls the world)

⚠️Cheating, Gore, Death, Explicit Language, Non-graphic Sex Scenes, Drug Abuse, Alcohol, Mentions of physical abuse and the abuse of a child

Stunning.

I code this dark academia book. The characters the setting all of it was chefs kiss. Perfect for spooky season!

This is quite the thriller just when I thought I had it figured out and where it was going Nope I was wrong.
This is a fast paced thriller that grabbed my attention from the start.
I just finished this book & I am having trouble putting my thoughts into words I will come back later and express my thoughts better but for now if you like dark academia stories that have
Forbidden love
Secrets
Gothic dark academia
Self discovery
History
Psychological,Thriller
This one’s for you

Holy shit. Here’s to the start of psychological thriller season (if it’s even considered that???)

I know they say it’s dark academia - but the entire book I was saying “what the fuck is happening” but I read it under 24 hours because I needed to know. So I think the “what the fuck is happening” ties well with dark?? Maybe?

Lennon’s life is falling apart. She finds her fiancé cheating on her, leaves the house to hurt herself essentially, and gets a phone call that she’s been accepted to Drayton College (a college she’s never heard of, let alone applied to). She decides to go and do their interview process and gets in. The school focuses on the innate gift of persuasion that she has.

She goes through her classes trying to learn how to distort stuff, when it’s revealed she can open elevators. Her power continues to grow but has to leave the campus after a killing. Shit happens, it gets crazy - there’s even a hint of romance (enough to make my romantic heart happy).

All of that to say, I think this would make an epic thriller movie.

But I don’t think the moth is ever explained. It’s on the cover, and it’s brought up in relation to her professor. And I’m still confused on that.

I forgot to leave a review for this, but I really enjoyed it! It's already out, so I won't say much more than I need to for my star rating. <3

This is a story about elevators.

I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH. Do you enjoy spooky, magical, dark academia? What about compelling characters with complex motivations? Read this book! I literally couldn’t put it down, and would love to chat about it if you do.

Thank you so much Berkley for the eArc & Prha for the Alc!

Dark academia is hit or miss for me, however, this one was a good, fast-paced read that I enjoyed. Lennon Carter, engaged to be married, witnesses infidelity and flees her engagement. Most people go on with their normal lives after something like that but not Lennon. She's recruited to a hidden school in the heart of Savannah, Georgia to study the art of persuasion. Nothing is as it seems in this book so it kept me guessing until the end. I really liked the character of Lennon and felt like she could be a real person. Dante, however, fell short for me. I just didn't see the allure. He was the typical hunky teacher that the main character falls for. I could have done without that story line but overall, the book was a good read.

It's been a while since a book grabbed me like this one did. I found myself sneaking in extra pages every chance I got. The magic system, centered around persuasion, caught me off guard at first—but Henderson quickly turned it into something fascinating. The way she crafted the school, the political intrigue, and the manipulation of reality was expertly done. Every character had depth, and the romance was woven in seamlessly without overtaking the plot.

The mystery and betrayal were captivating, and you can tell that every detail was carefully thought out. There’s no filler here—just a tightly written, engaging story. It reminded me of the excitement I felt reading Harry Potter or Babel, with its academic setting, power struggles, and corruption. This book stands out for its originality and well-drawn characters.

This book is truly one of a kind in its concepts and characters. I need to read more from Alexis Henderson because every line truly mattered in this story! Every line kept me wanting more!

I’ve seen a lot of good reviews for Henderson’s previous books, and this one sounded interesting, so I thought I’d give it a try. Objectively, this is a very good book. It’s easy to become invested in Lennon, Lennon and Dante, and Drayton College itself. There’s mystery and a somewhat twisted love story, and I love that the students are adults who are outside of the typical age for college. I enjoyed the twists and the persuasive skills, and I had a great time with several of the secondary characters. But I struggled to connect with this one. It felt like the story was crawling along, and I sometimes found myself pleading with it to just be over. Needless to say, An Academy for Liars and I did not click, but I do think it’s a fantastic dark academia novel. Maybe dark academia just isn’t my cup of tea.

On the night of her engagement party, Lennon sees an aberration while she’s looking at herself in the mirror and, later, catches her fiance cheating on her with a friend. So she drives off, intending on killing herself, but the phone in a phone booth rings, and she answers. Thus starts her strange journey to a place in Savannah called Drayton College, a campus hidden where students outside of the typical college age gain entrance after rigorous testing. There, they learn how to use persuasion to make people and reality bend to their will. Lennon and her classmates end up turning on each other, hurting each other and themselves under their professors’ watchful eyes as they learn to use and control their power, because persuasion comes at a high price, and Lennon might have to pay the highest in service to Drayton College. Because there are dark secrets hidden here, and dangers at every turn from students, professors, and administrators.

I was, unfortunately, not persuaded to enjoy this book. I could say it’s because it could be a little gruesome, was a lot bloody, and had horrors that scared me. But, honestly, I think everything I’ve been reading this year has inoculated me from feeling the usual horror I do, so nothing in this book really horrified me, or even turned my stomach. I didn’t enjoy this because I couldn’t connect to Lennon. Even though the reader is in her head the entire novel, I struggled to get to know her. She just felt like a sad, lost soul who made a lot of bad choices and went after the men she shouldn’t have. Perhaps she’s the kind of character other readers will love and root for, but I found her a little childish, a little too self-centered, and completely unable to see things from other perspectives. She just kind of felt like a jumbled mess to me. To me, she lacked maturity, and that led to her making poor choices. There were times, certainly, when I knew she didn’t have any better choices, but there were also other times when I felt like I was begging her to make the better choice. Her romance with Dante is also twisted and unethical, and they both know it, yet they still engage with each other, which just made me feel disgusted. Then again, perhaps these are just part of dark academia. I wouldn’t know; this is my first dark academia novel, and probably my last.

But An Academy for Liars isn’t a bad book; it’s decently written with a compelling story and broken characters keeping plenty of secrets. Lennon is complex and her relationships with her peers are complex. They’re not 18-22 year olds; they’re older and have lived lives and come from varying places of life experience. They have stories and histories and families they never tell each other about. They’re maneuvering around each other to prove their worth, and the school purposefully pits them against each other. It’s ugly and brutal, and it works so well in this story and place. There’s definitely a darkness over this place, and it isn’t helped by professors and administrators who encourage them, delighting in watching them hurt each other. Drayton is a terrifying place, and yet it also, weirdly, felt comforting. It offers a home and purpose to Lennon, one she doesn’t even know until the end. Every piece slotted well together, even all the things I didn’t like.

I didn’t like Lennon, but she was a well-crafted character. There’s depth to her, and a whole host of weaknesses that others try to use against her. I enjoyed watching her journey; I just wish her power and its limits had been explored a little more. Her powers seemed to grow by leaps by the end, and sometimes it felt like it was in service to the story instead of because she actually learned to grow her power that much. And I don’t like the idea that she was just always that powerful and just needed to learn to tap into it. I really hated her romance with Dante, though I am glad it felt more like an undercurrent than a real subplot. Even though I knew what was happening the whole time, I liked that I could pretend it wasn’t. I liked that Dante’s character felt elusive and fascinating, and I wanted to know more about him. I felt like too much was left unsaid about him, and I hated that he held so tightly to all his secrets. I think they ended up hurting Lennon in the end, even if he might have been trying to help her, and I hated that I felt like I had to wait until the end for any reveals to start to happen. Most of the book is given over to Lennon learning how to use her power, and it grew exhausting after a while because there were all these mysteries going on around her and absolutely no one willing to say a word, leaving her to feel a little afloat and at the mercy of literally everyone else.

And yet I liked her classmates. They were all interesting, even if I got a couple of the boys mixed up now and then. There was the hint of possible tension between Lennon and Emerson, a powerful student also under the mentorship of Dante, but it never manifested, and that left me disappointed. I adored Blaine, though. She had a bit of an arc herself, and I really enjoyed watching it unfold. I didn’t get the resolution I wanted from it because I had questions and none of them were answered. But I loved the way her story unfolded, and I loved the way it folded into the main plot of the book. She was also just such a fantastic character, and one of the few I felt actually cared about Lennon. I also really liked Sawyer. He’s very much a background character, but I adored how much he really tried to look out for Lennon, and I definitely wish he could have been a romantic interest. He seemed like such a good guy. Lennon’s rivalry with Ian was fun, though I definitely felt Ian was more unhinged than he came off, and sometimes I felt like he was compelled to hate Lennon more than he actually did.

I liked the idea of how Drayton came about, and I liked that the story focused on persuasion and how it can be used. I loved that it has limits and that everyone’s skills manifested in different ways while still having the same foundation. The college absolutely feels dark and forbidding and I kept picturing persistent dark clouds overhead. I liked getting a glimpse into their classes and lessons, but wasn’t as fond of all the time jumps. Just when I thought something should have happened, suddenly it’s a month later and nothing has happened. Instead, Lennon and her peers go on with their studying and lives, and I felt a little irritated. But this world offered just the right amount of tension, supporting the story in a fantastic way. This felt like the kind of campus I would love to visit, but certainly wouldn’t want to be a student at. But my favorite part was how it could possibly exist, hidden as it is. I loved the lore of it, and how horrifying it is.

An Academy for Liars is, simply, not my cup of tea. That said, there are a lot of good things in it. The elements worked brilliantly together, though I feel I left the novel with far too many questions. I wasn’t a fan of the romance, but I liked Lennon’s friends. I loved the mystery of the campus, and the plotting and backstabbing was fun because, when it came down to it, these students were more united than not and that was fantastic. This might not have been for me, but I think fans of dark academic will find a lot to love.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

I love dark academia and I really liked the premise of this book. It was, however, a very slow burn and didn’t keep my attention the entire time. I also didn’t truly love anyone in the cast of characters and felt a little removed from the story. With all that being said, the premise is unique and interesting to read and I would not dissuade anyone from reading this. I look forward to trying this author’s other books. We chose this as a book club book so I’m excited to discuss it with other readers!

This was the perfect cross between dark academia and inception. we got the vibes and setting of dark academia while the plot was playing with our minds. As the title says, you couldn’t tell who to trust until the end. A small romance subplot added to the story and didn't take away from it. Overall very much enjoyed the book, and perfect time of year to read!

This book was so good! All the twists and the world of Drayton were so fantastic to read. I loved learning more about the characters and seeing how dark they would get.

Thank you to the publisher for letting me read an early version of this book. Dark academia FTW. Very cool premise. If you liked A Deadly Education and/or Gideon the Ninth, I think this one is for you.

This thoroughly adult piece of dark academia -- no teen wizards, no monsters other than human ones --enhances its Southern Gothic setting with an intriguing magic system variant. Rather than casting spells, students at Drayton College study to refine their powers of persuasion. Far more than personal charm, persuasion is an innate (yet trainable) ability to force one's will upon other entities, from rats to classmates to time itself. Those who wield it pay a heavy price, however -- and many of Drayton's residents are damaged to begin with.

Recruited from a life spiraling toward self-destruction, Lennon Carter struggles at first with both her studies and her relationships. After a short lifetime of choosing controlling men, she winds up falling for her advisor -- a plot point some readers will have trouble with, as I did -- and running afoul of a violent male classmate. Both relationships examine just what power does to those who wield it -- and whether "good" people can truly use persuasion effectively.

Lennon, however, must do more than use her talents effectively. Like all proper dark academic institutions, Drayton has a secret. As Lennon improves her control and discovers her unique persuasive skills, she is drawn deeper into the web of half-truths and betrayals that protect this secret -- and, eventually, the survival of Drayton itself. Her own survival is secondary.

At times, this novel felt over-packed. There's a lot of backstory -- sometimes delivered at multiple-page length --and interpersonal machinations early on, though most will turn out to be significant. There is possibly too much emphasis on style (androgynous names, tattoos galore), and way too many clove cigarettes. As the plot cranks up, however, none of this matters. Alexis Henderson knows her way around eldritch action, and the suspense keeps twisting until the end.

<i>An Academy for Liars</i> is on the morally grayer side of its subgenre. Persuasion isn't a pretty gift, and there's a good bit of gore along the way. Readers seeking an edgier experience, however, should be well satisfied.

Dark Academia in the fall for me is the perfect reading combination. An Academy for Liars is a wonderful new addition to that genre. From the opening of the book forward I immediately felt the dar atmosphere and the sense in which something is not right for the main character. She is not particularly likable, but enough to keep us interested as she is chosen to attend a special university where she can learn the art of magical "persuasion." How dangerous would it be if there were people who could replace our memories and make us believe anything they wanted? I loved the premise here and how the magical system just begs for ethical complexity from the very start. The story has all the needed ingredients: A cast of flawed students, a hidden school, a hot professor, and, well, some unexplained accidents and a possible murder (or two).

Overall this was an enjoyable read that got me into the fall mood. It sadly doesn't rival some of my favorites in this genre, and there are definitely some plot holes I feel like that get glossed over a little too quickly. But it is well worth a read and has some unique takes all its own.

2.5 stars

This was a different take on the standard "magical" school/dark academia. The characters were interesting and varied, however, many of the secondary characters were so one-dimensional that I often forgot who they were. The scenes set at the school were the most interesting to me. I wish more of the story had been set learning more about the magic/persuasion system, rather than the teacher/student romance that felt very out of place.

The story started off well: a mysterious phone call, a school that doesn't exist, a form of "magic," but quickly fell apart. The plot seemed choppy with several scenes serving little purpose that I could see.

The story's premise was so good, but honestly, this fell pretty flat for me.