The third and final installment of Bardugo's Ninth House dark fantasy series offers more gritty corruption, seemingly insurmountable challenges, the threat of the entirety of hell's wrath, wonderfully morbid humor, some hard-won romance, and a ragtag group of loyal allies bent on thwarting the spread of evil. This was friendship, he supposed. You learned the rhythms of hurt and apology. You crashed through each other's lives and hoped for grace in the final tally of the damag

Lex Croucher's foray into dark academia is fantastic, with angst, mature themes, magical adventure, sinister plots, far-reaching repercussions, and a childhood heartbreak that is revisited and revised in heartbreaking, satisfying form. Briar and Sebastian are childhood best friends, but when Sebastian is accepted into the renowned nearby magic school at age 11 and Briar is not, the two have a heartbreaking, fraught split. Briar has always dreamed of attending the Temple Schoo

I loved the dark--and often darkly funny--journey of Cambridge postgraduate magick students Alice and Peter to hell, a quest they undertake because their advisor has died and they really need his recommendations. Also, they each fear they're the one who killed him. ...maybe going on meant believing in what she couldn't possibly know. Maybe if she went on she could find some way to make this pain stop. In Kuang's dark academia fantasy novel Katabasis , Alice Law is a postgrad

The first book in Hodgson's trilogy is smart, mysterious, charming, and layered. I loved the dark academia setting; the brilliant,...

I loved the dark academia setting, Sciona's bid to become the first female in the High Magistry, and her rethinking of long-held...