The Secret History, by Donna Tartt. Vintage Contemporaries, 1992.

This is a kind of strange book. I picked it up because I read that it’s the foundation of the ‘dark academia’ strain of books. Sadly, it did not have any supernatural aspects to it, but it was very, very dark.

Richard Papen is our narrator. He is from California, in an area where ( Read more... )

The Golden Enclaves: Lesson Three of the Scholomance, by Naomi Novik. Del Ray, 2022

Starting just minutes after the end of Lesson Two, Lesson Three starts with Galadriel “El” Higgins having just gotten all grades of the students in the Scholomance out alive- all except one. The door way has closed, forever, with one person left behind- Orion Lake, ( Read more... )

The Last Graduate: Lesson Two of the Scholomance, by Naomi Novik. Del Ray, 2021

The second volume in the Scholomance Trilogy finds the narrator, Galadriel “El” in her senior year. The graduating class has escaped, and the new load of freshmen have been portaled in. In this school, where there are no instructors, assignments appear by magic, and one ( Read more... )

A Deadly Education: Lesson One of The Scholomance, by Naomi Novik. Del Rey,2020

Galadriel- “El”- to pretty much everyone- is in her junior year at wizard school, which is very much not like Hogwarts. The school itself- the Scholomance- is a somewhat sentient structure that exists in the great void, with only one way in and one way out. And you only ( Read more... )