Dark academia is a genre that layers gothic or moody overtones on stories set in universities and boarding schools. Old books, shadowy hallways, secret societies… but what if we add a little magic to the mix? Here are some of our favourite books that combine dark academia and fantasy.
Quentin Coldwater is a brilliant but miserable high school student who’s still obsessed with the fantasy books of his childhood. When Brakebill’s College of Magical Pedagogy offers him an elite education in the occult, it feels as though he’s…
The rules of the Scholomance are simple: survive until graduation. Armed with her own dark power, El thinks she is uniquely prepared for the school’s dangers, at least until golden boy Orion Lake does something truly terrible: he saves her life.…
The Alexandrian Society is a secret cabal of magical academics, sworn to protect the lost knowledge of antiquity. Every decade, six young magicians compete to join their ranks. Five will be selected for initiation… and one will pay the price. This…
Blue Sargent has always known that her kiss will kill her true love. So she avoids boys—most importantly, boys from Aglionby Academy, the local private school—until she sees the spirit of Gansey, a charismatic Aglionby boy on a hunt for a dead Welsh…
Robin Swift has been studying for years to attend Oxford University’s Royal Institute of Translation, the center of Britain’s magical power and international might. But as an orphaned Chinese boy raised in Britain, can he reconcile his lust for…
At an exclusive school outside of Arlington, Virginia, students are taught to manipulate minds and weird words as weapons, earning them the title of “poet.” Emily Ruff is the school’s most talented prodigy until she makes a catastrophic mistake:…
Ever wonder what happens to those kids who fall down a rabbit hole or pass through a portal, once they come back to the real world? They end up at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, where the rules are: no solicitations, no visitors, and most…
At the Institute of Special Technologies, the lessons are maddening, the books are impossible to read, and failure does not harm the students, but their families. In translation from Russian, written by two Ukrainian authors, Vita Nostra puts a…
When his advisor disappears, graduate student Paul is plunged into the center of a deadly mystery where the clues all point to one thing: Vlad Tepes, better known as Dracula, is alive and well today. A lengthy, atmospheric piece of historical…
