Twisty, Thrilling Stories About Boarding Schools and Academia

Cambridge alumna Mariana Andros is alarmed when her niece’s friend is found murdered on campus. Mariana is sure that the oft-adored, charismatic classic mythology professor Edward Fosca is responsible. Despite the cult around him, despite the secret society of girls called The Maidens that adores him, Mariana is absolutely convinced that Fosca is guilty. But as she pushes further and further in to try and prove it, she risks losing her credibility (and her self) in the process.

Ivy Gamble is the non-magical sister. All her life, she’s had to come to terms with it, lying to herself and everyone else that she doesn’t mind her sister is a highly successful professor of theoretical magic while she became a private investigator with a drinking problem. But now, hired to solve a murder at a magic high school, she’ll have to confront those lies (and her sister), all while hiding her lack of magic from the suspects and students. This mystery has many unexpected swerves, but the core of the book is Ivy’s own struggle to be honest with herself.

Miss Clara is already a mess by the time she comes to the Delta Bilingual Academy high school for girls. The brutally mean, sharp Anneliese and her friends clock that straight away. As Clara fights her panic disorder amidst the psychological warfare inflicted on her by the teenage mean girls, the friend group spends its days sharing scary stories and creepypastas and daring each other to do painful or risky stunts. It all comes to a head in this Yellowjackets-reminiscent tale by an Ecuadorian writer.

Drayton College saved Lennon. Broken-hearted and having dropped out of college, Lennon was a mess when Drayton reached out to her to try and test into their magical programming. Turns out she has a strong gift for persuasion, and she’s lifted into the ranks of this prestigious institution. She’s learning how to use her powers, the campus is beautiful, and her adviser is disarmingly charming and attractive. But Drayton has a troubling history, and the more Lennon digs in, the less she wants to know. Is all this worth what Drayton will do to her in the end?

Rose Christie is excited to get started at a seaside boarding school of Caldonbrae, where she’ll be teaching mythology to young growing minds. But things aren’t quite right here. Neither the administration or the students seem happy with her feminist-leaning interpretations of myth. She can’t figure out what happened to her predecessor, and the school seems to be taking a disturbing amount of control over her personal life. As Rose starts to investigate, she begins to uncover revelations about what these girls are actually being groomed for.

We all know the vibes of Nievus Private Academy. It’s a place where rich kids of rich parents go to get rocketed into the elites. There are only two Black students, Devon and Chiamaka, and they are both extremely welcome and given equal treatment, in theory. They’ve learned to be cut-throat and tough to get what they want in this environment, but then an anonymous mass-texter threatens to release their secrets into the spotlight. Now, they have to work together if they don’t want their worst truths revealed to the entire school.

The Tox locked down the Raxter School for Girls 18 months ago. The disease took the teachers first, and then moved to the students, morphing them as if the wild forest itself was moving into the school. Now the girls are cut off from the rest of the world and trying to survive, fighting off deformed animals and handling the bizarre changes to their own bodies. But when girls start going missing, Hetty is determined to find out why. What she uncovers will change the entire story of what’s going on and why they’ve been quarantined.

The author of dark academia fantasy Babel, or the Necessity of Violence is returning this August with a new blockbuster novel in the genre. Two rival grad students descend into hell to retrieve their professor after he exploded in an experiment gone wrong. Not so much because they care for him. It’s more because after everything he put them through, all the years of academic grind and politics, they really need those recommendation letters he promised. This combined satire of and love letter to academia is also a richly built fantasy with the kind of scholarly magic readers loved in Babel.