Old libraries filled with leather-bound tomes with a thin layer of dust. Courtyards with gothic arches covered in ivy. The whispers of students dressed in tweed jackets as they drift between classes. And, as always, dark secrets and moral dilemmas around every corner. I've been fascinated with novels like these for years, however they can be sometimes hard to find, as they don't belong to any specific genre. Instead, they cut across several different ones, at once possessing elements of mystery, horror, thriller, romance, and sometimes even fantasy. Most folks have settled on a label for these types of books: Dark Academia.
There's a few qualities that Dark Academia novels have in common: they are usually set in a boarding school, university, or academies devoted to secret knowledge. This very specific setting seals the characters off and separates them from the outside world. Also because of this, characters tend to be young, around the high school or college range. These characters are often entering a formal academic world for the first time, studying complex, mature topics, with all the first encounters with love, friendships, and adulthood that come with it. And finally, these novels are thick with a menacing atmosphere. This, of course, is the "dark" part of Dark Academia - while everyone else lives in a world of classes and studying and first loves, there's always something sinister lurking underneath the surface: murder, cults, and betrayal.
If you're interested in this topic (what should we call this? A micro-genre?) we'll give you some recommendations to get you going.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt is a foundational text, and you'll find it at the top of most lists of dark academia books. Tartt's novel of a suburban middle-class teen who falls in with an insular group of Classics students in a small New England university - and the cultish murder that drives them apart - is written in an almost dreamlike elegance, thick with literary atmosphere, class differences, and magnificent attention to detail. Readers can picture themselves among the dusty classrooms, the boozy brunches, and the late-night study sessions. Tartt's study of a seemingly unbreakable bond between friends that turns into a tragedy has been a book club favorite since publication. (I still have my tattered copy.) She also uses the literary device of telling the story in flashback, using time and memory as a way of providing a different perspective of past events. Other novels have done this as well, including Rebecca Makkai's I Have Some Questions for You.
For those who are less interested in literary fiction and are attracted more to juicy intrigue and drama, there are plenty of Dark Academia options out there that lean more into the mystery/thriller genres. Only If You're Lucky by Stacy Willingham has more twists and turns than a country road at midnight. A shy young woman enters into her freshman year at college and gets plucked out of obscurity to room with one of the most popular girls on campus. Sucked in to a whirlwind of parties and social events, everything looks great until a new guy with a history with the main character moves in to the building next door, the popular girl goes missing, and fingers start pointing and long-buried secrets start unravelling. Willingham, a heavyweight in the psychological thriller genre, tackles a memorable campus thriller focusing on female friendship and the need to belong along with a classic unreliable narrator. For readers who want something similar, try Layne Fargo's razor-sharp They Never Learn.
Another genre that often gets pulled into Dark Academia is fantasy. After all, who among us hasn't longed for someday getting a hand-lettered envelope inviting us to study at a faraway college of hidden magic? Several novels fit into this category, including Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House, Alexis Henderson's An Academy for Liars, and Olivie Blake's The Atlas Six, but an excellent recent example is R.F. Kuang's Babel, a thick but very rewarding novel about an alternative history where a professor brings an orphan from Macau all the way to London to study magical transcription at Oxford University in the 1800s. After falling in love with learning and establishing a circle of friends, we discover that the process of magical transcription itself carries with it a darker underside that supports the growth of colonialism. Kuang mixes deep historical research of life at Oxford with a unique magic system along with a story of awakening and rebellion into an intoxicating mix that will keep readers turning pages.
That not enough to get you started? Light your candelabra, put on a tweed blazer, and try these further dark academia recommendations.
