From the publisher: “Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua’s College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold.
On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful and enigmatic Carmilla. Together, they are drawn into the confidence of their demanding poetry professor, De Lafontaine, who holds her own dark obsession with Carmilla.
But as their rivalry blossoms into something far more delicious, Laura must confront her own strange hungers. Tangled in a sinister game of politics, bloodthirsty professors and dark magic, Laura and Carmilla must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice in their ruthless pursuit of knowledge.”
One of the most recent genre trends to have reappeared lately has been that now known as ‘dark academia’. I do like a story based around educational establishments – after all, I have spent over 30 years working in them! – and I really enjoyed the recent dark academia anthology In These Hallowed Halls, which was one of my favourites of last year.
Running through our tick list then, we have here an ancient college – Saint Perpetua’s College, Massachusetts (tick – Lovecraft fans, note the location!) – where a new student (tick) – Laura Sheridan – takes up a course in English. Places at the college are highly competitive, with lectures and debates seen as competitions rather than places of shared learning. It soon transpires that Laura’s nemesis is Carmilla, a student already established at the College and who seems to be much favoured by the Poetry lecturer Ms. De Lafontaine. Laura craves the attention and tuition of De Lafontaine, and so makes it her purpose to beat Carmilla in poetical matters.
It shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to find that she is also intrigued by the close relationship De Lafontaine and Carmilla seem to have. Over the course of the book we find that De Lafontaine is a vampire who has initiated Carmilla into being her thrall. Is Laura willing to go that extra distance to compete with Carmilla for De Lafontaine’s attention? Unsurprisingly, the story becomes a sapphic romance, with Carmilla and Laura become determined to uncover De Lafontaine’s dark secrets and the importance of Saint Perpetua’s College to her.
Cards on the table, I was not a fan of Gibson’s first novel, A Dowry in Blood, to the point where I didn’t finish it. I understand that there is a connection between this and A Dowry in Blood should you wish to find it, although I don’t think I was unduly missing out by not having finished the previous novel. Like Dowry of Blood was connected to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, there is of course also a connection between Gibson’s novel and the classic Carmilla by Justin le Fanu, published in 1872.
The sapphic elements here are well done, even if they move rather rapidly in places. I guess that the Tik Tok generation (of which I am not) may refer to the book as ‘spicy’, although I didn’t find the sex too explicit personally. However, I would suggest that this may not necessarily be a book for younger readers.
What may be of greater concern to some readers is that the whole toxic relationship between De Lafontaine and her students is something which in the 21st century could be seen as grooming, and therefore may be uncomfortable reading. The cruel irony may be that this is a long-term series of relationships. As we further uncover secrets in the book, we find that De Lafontaine herself may be a victim of such an activity.
The good news then is that with An Education in Malice Gibson may have found her voice. I enjoyed this one much more than A Dowry in Blood, so much so that I think that in the dark academia realm Gibson may be one to watch in the future. For anyone who wants a sapphic vampire story set in an academic environment, this may be for you.
AN EDUCATION IN MALICE by S. T. Gibson
Published by Orbit, February 2024
ISBN: 978 035 6519 326
368 pages
Review by Mark Yon
