The competitive world of professorial academics, sapphic romance, and mythic Norse monsters coming alive fuel Taylor Grothe’s adult horror debut, Lethal Kiss.
Told from the first person point of view of our romantic leads – Marcella and Lacie. Marcella is not exactly what she seems… a long-lived draugr (a Norse undead) who transfers from her middle American university to the East Coast (Ivy?) League Preston University’s Classics Department. She makes waves immediately, she is charismatic, gorgeous, and knows how to play the game in the VERY male dominated world. Meanwhile, Lacie’s on the track to being a full professor when her friend/girlfriend goes missing. Lacie isn’t quite as gregarious as Marcella, calling her a shrinking violet is a step to far, but she tends to keep her head down and focus until of course her friend disappears and this new academic Marcella arrives and seemingly jumps ahead of Lacie in the pecking order to be granted tenure.
Turns out Lacie’s friend was murdered and she isn’t the first. As the bodies mount Marcella knows a monster is responsible for the killings. Playing on Lacie’s desire for revenge & justice for her fallen friend, the two form an uneasy alliance to hunt down the monstrous killer. Their relationship is very much an “opposites attract” situation. The way Grothe plays their inner thoughts against each other through the dual first-person narrative helped to make the story move along in that important addictive fashion that good story should. They both realize they shouldn’t fall for the other, but can’t help themselves because of the powerful, addictive chemistry of their intermingled personalities even if Marcella leaned into the condescension at times. Understandable considering the centuries between her and Lacie.
Lest we forget that horror part of this story because Grothe is as unflinching in her depiction of the gore and monstrosities as she is in the deepening romance between Lacie and Marcella. The horrors play very nicely into the dark academia of it all, too. Yes, monstrosities are running rampant on the campus of Preston University killing and eating people, but there’s an added layer of a secret society behind the academics.
The other standout to me was how there were no redeemable male characters. Even the one male character who had potential to be something of a good person went the other direction once a glimmer of power was waggled in front of him. That’s sort of the point of the story and is illustrative of everything Lacie and women in her position have to deal with regularly.
Grothe is themself an academic, a scholar of medieval literature and Nordic Saga. Clearly, their experience as an academic and specifically the subject of Nordic Saga hep to fuel the “write what you know” adage but damn is there a wonderful authenticity to the whole of the story. From their conveyance of the stress Lacie feels, to the deeply Nordic flavor of the novel, it was immersive and genuine.
With all of this in mind, Lethal Kiss is a novel that would appeal to readers looking for dark academia, horror, sapphic romance…a Horrormance. It has heart and shows some bloody hearts, too.
© 2026 Rob H. Bedford
Hardcover | 384 Pages
October 2026 | Tor Nightfire
https://www.taylorgrothe.com/
Excerpt: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250433879/lethalkiss/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
