Gothikana by Runyx – Review

Published: March 16, 2023

Publisher: Solaris

Series: N/A

Genre: Romance, Fantasy

Pages: 400 (Paperback)

My Rating: 3 Stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
An unusual girl. An enigmatic man. An ancient castle. What could go wrong?

An outcast her entire life, Corvina Clemm is left adrift after losing her mother. When she receives the admission letter from the mysterious University of Verenmore, she accepts it as a sign from the universe. The last thing she expects though is an olden, secluded castle on top of a mountain riddled with secrets, deceit, and death.

An enigma his entire life, Vad Deverell likes being a closed book but knowing exactly everything that happens in the university. A part-time professor working on his thesis, Vad has been around long enough to know the dangers the castle possesses.
And he knows the moment his paths cross with Corvina, she’s dangerous to everything that he is.

They shouldn’t have caught each other’s eye. They cannot be. But a chill-inducing century-old mystery forces them to collide. People have disappeared every five years for over a hundred years, and Corvina is getting clues to unraveling it all, and Vad needs to keep an eye on her.

And so begins a tale of the mystique, the morbid, the macabre, and a deep love that blossoms in the unlikeliest of places.

---

You guys know I can’t resist a pretty cover! Or for that matter a fantasy romance set in a mysterious university on top of a mountain. I’ll admit, I didn’t go into this having high expectations and it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great, but it WAS fun.

Corvina Clemm was invited to this exclusive university and sees it as a wonderful opportunity to begin her life anew. She was from a small village, though she and her mother (who had some sort of unspecified mental illness) lived outside of town near the forest’s edge and she was very sheltered. When she begins at the University of Verenmore, Corvina is in her early twenties, though thanks to her upbringing she doesn’t seem that much older than the other new students. She’s not exactly naïve, but she is somewhat innocent and fortunately this aspect of her doesn’t get taken advantage of the way I expected it to. I thought she was going to be the weird new kid that gets picked on, but this is *university* and these kids/adults are so much more *mature*. I was pleasantly surprised that Corvina makes friends quite easily and in this way, the book defied expectations. 

While at first this is just about a girl starting a new life at school, there is a darker, more sinister plot as well. The grounds near the school have some creepy ruins and there are rumors that there was once a cult of some sort operating nearby, plus every so many years on a particular night someone goes missing. Oh, and lest I forget the most important part – there’s a hot graduate student who happens to also be a teacher and Corvina makes *eye contact* with him and they immediately have this connection. My eyes are making contact with my brain right now because I rolled them so hard. That being said, I also devoured this book in a single evening because I couldn’t put it down. The romance theme is very prominent, as this is fantasy romance, and there are several spicy scenes. It starts of with lots of tension, but things quickly escalate. I will note, the buzz online touts this as a romance with an age gap, which I think sounds pretty skeezy. In fact, Corvina is twenty-one and Vad is twenty-seven, so make of that what you will.

This was, like I said, a very fun read that actually had an interesting occult mystery element to it. There were a few scenes that were actually very unsettling and suspenseful and it was awesome! It also had some total cheesiness, like the names Corvina and Vad – don’t they just scream angsty, tortured souls? They both have dark and mysterious pasts and did I mention, he’s rich but is keeping it a secret? Vad is very much the dark and mysterious love interest stereotype. There are definitely an (over)abundance of popular tropes present and the dialogue is kind of stilted and awkward sometimes. I think had this book been read aloud to someone, the awkward dialogue bits would have quickly become apparent. This isn’t a masterpiece but dang it, if you want a dark academia romance this is a good fit!