3.75

So the writing is lovely - best part of the book.
The relationships are not healthy - taboo with power dynamics in play and predatory women. Takes some notes from Carmilla but not in a play-by-play way.
The overall story wasn’t for me but I still enjoyed the read.

https://youtube.com/@ChanelChapters ( )

When I saw that S. T. Gibson was releasing a Dark Academia retelling of Carmilla I was all in. A Dowry of Blood was one of my favorite books of 2021 with it gothic prose and deep queer relationships, I read it on a red eye flight I really should have been sleeping on and was unable to put it down. So understandably I was trilled to see S. T. Gibson going back to Vampires, but this time with a Dark Academia setting of a girls college.

When you first step into the world of An Education in Malice it is through Laura Sheridan's eyes. She is well read, but very in-experienced in almost every aspect of life. However she has a hunger and drive that push her towards greatness in both her art and in life. On the other side of this tale, our second POV, is Carmilla. Carmilla has experienced more then her young age lets on and has traveled across oceans in pursuit of her art, she desires youth, passion, and perfection above all else. On the first day of classes they are thrust into an academia rivalry by their enigmatic and intense poetry professor, De Lafonatine.

The world that you fall into reading this book seems at first glance smaller and more tame then it should be based on the subject matter being Vampires, however as you dig into the world you see the secrets hidden around each corner and the steps each woman is taking to protect her own secrets. The world flushes out to be gritty, gothic, and overflowing with lust and temptation as each woman struggles with opening themselves to the strange and wonderful relationship they have built together.

S. T, Gibson again created a gothic queer masterpiece that I want to live in, a retelling that only added to the original, and overall a work nothing short of magical.

I would recommend this book to you if you adore:
- Vampires
- Queer Stories
- Dark Academia
- Gothic Lit
- Poetry
- Slow building dark and deadly worlds

This is one that will be on my most recommenced list for years to come.

I received an advance review copy of this book and I am leaving this review voluntarily and all thoughts and opinions are wholly my own and unbiased. ( )

I received this novel from Orbit Books through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to both of them for this opportunity.

After the mild disappointment suffered from S.T. Gibson’s other new novel, Evocation, I had high hopes that An Education in Malice would fare as well for me as the author’s debut novel, A Dowry of Blood, and that the return to the theme of vampirism would re-create the lyrical writing that thad captivated me completely in that first book. But sadly that was not the case: I will have to add my disappointed review to the ones some of my fellow bloggers posted in the past few days….

The story, in a nutshell: Laura Sheridan arrives at the prestigious Saint Perpetua college to further her poetry studies under the tutelage of renowned professor De Lafontaine and she finds herself almost immediately put in competition with student Carmilla, who is clearly the teacher’s favorite. De Lafontaine, however, hides a dark secret and soon enough Laura will find herself enmeshed in a competitive triangle mixing academic learning and dark passions with unexpected consequences.

There is nothing that saddens me more than failed expectations, particularly where a review book I expressly requested is concerned, and after the amazing discovery that was A Dowry of Blood those expectations were quite high, but this book - like the other 2024 offering of the author, Evocation - did not stand the comparison with S.T. Gibson’s debut, a fact that made me wonder if the pressure of producing not one but two novels in the same year did not weigh too heavily on the author’s narrative powers. The novel is hailed as “sumptuous and addictive” but I would hesitate to use those terms because the prose, although still very close to the style used in Dowry, is certainly moodily descriptive but often fails in the dialogues that at times feel contrived, and rarely manage to convey any emotional layering from the characters.

As for the characters themselves, the relationship between Laura and Carmilla feels hurried, moving from hostile rivalry to insta-lust in too short a time to be truly believable: the novel unfolds by switching between the two girls’ POV, but their “voices” are too similar to offer any real difference between them, to the point that I often had to backtrack to the chapter’s beginning to confirm which one of them was relaying the events. The third point of the improbable “triangle”, that of professor De Lafontaine, constantly wavers between that of the oppressive adult who wields her power to abusive levels and that of the almost-mothering figure who still does not balk at taking advantage of her young charges. The revelation about the professor’s true nature as a vampire, and the impact it has on Carmilla directly and indirectly on Laura, is one that required a huge suspension of disbelief from me, because Laura’s almost passive acceptance of a situation that should have seen her run screaming for the hills is quite absurd.

My list of grievances could still run for a little while, but I see no reason to keep berating a story that seems to have captivated many other readers: clearly I’m not the intended audience for this book and I probably set the bar too high by expecting another compelling story as Dowry of Blood. Maybe someday in the future that will happen again…. ( )

Thank you to NetGalley and Redhook Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Pub Date: February 13, 2024

3.25 stars. I really enjoyed 'A Dowry of Blood' by S.T. Gibson so I was excited for this book but overall, I was let down. I just wasn't drawn into the story and I found I didn't really care about the characters. I also tend to need a goal/something the story is working towards and I feel this didn't really have that or that the goals kept shifting throughout the book so there wasn't anything consistent throughout. It wasn't terrible but I wasn't excited about picking it up at the end of the day. ( )

The writing is good, but I couldn't really get into the story. Laura, the main character, has a strong attraction to Carmilla, but I didn't find their relationship convincing. Carmilla, who is a big part of the story, felt just okay to me.

While the writing is well done, the kind of story it tells might not be my thing. ( )