An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson – Review

Published: February 13, 2024

Publisher: Redhook

Series: N/A

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 346 (Kindle)

My Rating: 4 Stars

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

Synopsis:
Sumptuous and addictive, An Education in Malice is a dark academia tale of blood, secrets and insatiable hungers from Sunday Times bestselling author S.T. Gibson, author of the cult hit A Dowry of Blood.

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.

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An Education in Malice is the academic rivalry I have been searching for. This follows Laura Sheridan, a reserved girl from Mississippi who has moved to Massachusetts to attend Saint Perpetua’s College and study under Professor De Lafontaine. She’s often described as angelic, thanks to her halo of blonde hair and her perceived innocent nature but that belies her truest self. Laura immediately makes an enemy of Carmilla Karnstein, a European girl who’s all cigarettes and sharp looks,  when she makes a brilliant first impression on the first day of the poetry seminar course they’re in together. 

What follows is a dramatic tale of two talented poets who love to hate and hate to love. The passion in both their poetry and rivalry is something to behold. I’m really not a poetry reader, but this really made me want to go find a dark, angsty poetry collection to my book collection. Possibly the best part of this dark academia is that it happens to be set in the same world as S.T. Gibson’s novel, A Dowry of Blood. You know what that means? Vampires.

Professor De Lafontaine is in fact a vampire and Carmilla, as her favored and most trusted student, is also her source of blood. Carmilla fears losing her mentor’s trust and affection to Laura, which alongside the competitive nature of their poetry work, contributes to their rivalry. This wouldn’t be much of a fantasy story if the entire thing was just about two college girls hating and lusting after one another. There’s also an unrestrained vampire loose in the area murdering the Saint Perpetua’s girls that really turns this story up a notch. 

I really enjoyed An Education in Malice and found I preferred this over A Dowry of Blood, which seems to be the opposite of how some other readers are feeling. I thought it was passionate and compelling, particularly the rivals to lovers aspect, which was done really well. Even the academia portion was great – it’s a story about a bunch of young college girls on their own for the first time in their lives and of course they’re sneaking around, going to parties, and even going on school holidays with their friends. It adds so much to the vibes that are often missing in books that claim to be “academia themed”. One last shout out to the focus on the characters’ sartorial choices, which is extra fabulous because this is set in the 1960s!