#paperback #darkacademia #fiction #mystery #youngadult 

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

North Carolina

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Hang a Witch comes a thriller set at a secretive boarding school where students are trained to carry on family legacies that have built--and toppled--empires.

November is as good as dead. She just doesn't know it yet.

At the Academy Absconditi, there's no electricity, no internet, and an archaic eye-for-an-eye punishment system. Classes range from knife throwing and poisons to the art of deception. And the students? Silver-spoon descendants of the world's most elite strategists--all training to become asassins, spies, and master imporsonators.

One is a virtuoso of accents--and never to be trusted. Another is a vicious fighter determined to exploit November's weaknesses. And then there's the boy with the mesmerizing eyes and a secret agenda. November doesn't know how an ordinary girl like her fits into the school's complicated legacy. But when a student is murdered, she'll need to separate her enemies from her allies before the crime gets pinned or her...or she becomes the killer's next victim.

Killing November

8b889574-034b-4967-a258-d95f9686cb01

Leigh Bardugo

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Kansas

A Novel

"Readers will be wowed." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. The Ivy League is going straight to hell in the sequel to the smash New York Times bestseller Ninth House from #1 bestselling author Leigh Bardugo.

"Bardugo's imaginative reach is brilliant." -Stephen King

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy "Alex" Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory--even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can't call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies' most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren't just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she'll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university's very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo's signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.

Hell Bent

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R. O. Kwon

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Illinois

The Incendiaries

0fc39e32-b299-442a-bd81-56b74459a208-1

Faridah Abike-Iyimide

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Maryland

Gossip Girl meets Get Out in Ace of Spades, a YA contemporary thriller by debut author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé about two students, Devon & Chiamaka, and their struggles against an anonymous bully. When two Niveus Private Academy students, Devon Richards and Chiamaka Adebayo, are selected to be part of the elite school’s senior class prefects, it looks like their year is off to an amazing start. After all, not only does it look great on college applications, but it officially puts each of them in the running for valedictorian, too. Shortly after the announcement is made, though, someone who goes by Aces begins using anonymous text messages to reveal secrets about the two of them that turn their lives upside down and threaten every aspect of their carefully planned futures. As Aces shows no sign of stopping, what seemed like a sick prank quickly turns into a dangerous game, with all the cards stacked against them. Can Devon and Chiamaka stop Aces before things become incredibly deadly? With heart-pounding suspense and relevant social commentary comes a high-octane thriller from debut author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé.

Ace of Spades

facbd5c5-3119-4157-afda-e1ef4ab68fb1-1

Olivie Blake

Kentucky

The much-acclaimed viral sensation from Olivie Blake, The Atlas Six--now newly revised and edited with additional content. • The tag #theatlassix has millions of views on TikTok • A dark academic debut fantasy with an established cult following that reads like The Secret History meets The Umbrella Academy • The first in an explosive trilogy The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation. Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, unwilling halves of an unfathomable whole, who exert uncanny control over every element of physicality. Reina Mori, a naturalist, who can intuit the language of life itself. Parisa Kamali, a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious, navigating worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova, an empath easily mistaken for a manipulative illusionist, who can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through illusions to a new structure of reality—an ability so rare that neither he nor his peers can fully grasp its implications. When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will. Most of them. "Lethally smart. Filled with a cast of brilliantly realized characters, each entangled with one another in torturously delicious ways, The Atlas Six will grip you by the throat and refuse to let go. Olivie Blake is a mind-blowing talent. " — Chloe Gong, author of NYT Bestselling These Violent Delights "The Atlas Six is a fantasy novel that understands that what the people want is more dark academia stories with flawless vibes and aesthetics and hot morally fraudulent characters who are constantly on the verge of either killing each other or fucking each other. I'm the people." — chai, viral book reviewer @proyearner

The Atlas Six

27b8d9f2-8d91-4c8f-9945-21b52baad9ee-1

Donna Tartt

Oversized Paperback (4 to 6 lbs)

Michigan

Richard Papen, a relatively impoverished student at a New England college, falls in with an exclusive clique of rich, worldly Greek scholars and soon learns the dreadful secret that keeps them together. Reader's Guide included. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.

The Secret History

f49ac853-786e-495d-b8d2-7a24b3aa76c8-1

Naomi Novik

New York

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver comes the first book of the Scholomance trilogy, the story of an unwilling dark sorceress who is destined to rewrite the rules of magic. "The dark school of magic I've been waiting for." Katherine Arden, author of Winternight Trilogy I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life. Everyone loves Orion Lake. Everyone else, that is. Far as I'm concerned, he can keep his flashy combat magic to himself. I'm not joining his pack of adoring fans. I don't need help surviving the Scholomance, even if they do. Forget the hordes of monsters and cursed artifacts, I'm probably the most dangerous thing in the place. Just give me a chance and I'll level mountains and kill untold millions, make myself the dark queen of the world. At least, that's what the world expects. Most of the other students in here would be delighted if Orion killed me like one more evil thing that's crawled out of the drains. Sometimes I think they want me to turn into the evil witch they assume I am. The school certainly does. But the Scholomance isn't getting what it wants from me. And neither is Orion Lake. I may not be anyone's idea of the shining hero, but I'm going to make it out of this place alive, and I'm not going to slaughter thousands to do it, either. Although I'm giving serious consideration to just one. With flawless mastery, Naomi Novik creates a school bursting with magic like you've never seen before, and a heroine for the ages--a character so sharply realized and so richly nuanced that she will live on in hearts and minds for generations to come. Praise for Deadly Education "The can't-miss fantasy of fall 2020, a brutal coming-of-power story steeped in the aesthetics of dark academia. . . . A Deadly Education will cement Naomi Novik's place as one of the greatest and most versatile fantasy writers of our time."--BookPage (starred review) "A must-read . . . Novik puts a refreshingly dark, adult spin on the magical boarding school. . . . Readers will delight in the push-and-pull of El and Orion's relationship, the fantastically detailed world, the clever magic system, and the matter-of-fact diversity of the student body."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A Deadly Education

b79529b8-0e19-425d-8554-e171e269f5fd-1

Tennessee

A LOCUS AWARD FINALIST!

The mesmerizing adult debut from Leigh Bardugo, a tale of power, privilege, dark magic, and murder set among the Ivy League elite

Galaxy "Alex" Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale's freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she's thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world's most prestigious universities on a full ride. What's the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale's secret societies. Their eight windowless "tombs" are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street's biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living.

Ninth House

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Richelle Mead

I read this book once and it has been sitting on my shelf for years. I probably won’t be reading it again so I want another reader to be able to enjoy it.

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Texas

A Vampire Academy Novel

Love gone awry, secret crushes, an upcoming holiday ski trip, and a recent attack by Strigoi has got Rose and the Academy on edge, especially when Rose's friends set off to fight Strigoi and end up in desperate need of a rescue by Rose and Christian. Original.

Frostbite

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M. L. Rio

Virginia

“Much like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, M. L. Rio’s sparkling debut is a richly layered story of love, friendship, and obsession...will keep you riveted through its final, electrifying moments.” —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author of The Nest "Nerdily (and winningly) in love with Shakespeare...Readable, smart.” —New York Times Book Review On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, the man who put him there is waiting at the door. Detective Colborne wants to know the truth, and after ten years, Oliver is finally ready to tell it. A decade ago: Oliver is one of seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of keen ambition and fierce competition. In this secluded world of firelight and leather-bound books, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingénue, extras. But in their fourth and final year, good-natured rivalries turn ugly, and on opening night real violence invades the students’ world of make-believe. In the morning, the fourth-years find themselves facing their very own tragedy, and their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, each other, and themselves that they are innocent. If We Were Villains was named one of Bustle's Best Thriller Novels of the Year, and Mystery Scene says, "A well-written and gripping ode to the stage...A fascinating, unorthodox take on rivalry, friendship, and truth."

If We Were Villains

2548e768-f208-420f-ba23-c0c3606640dd-1

Ohio

Adalyn Grace

Colorado

Now available in paperback, New York Times bestselling author Adalyn Grace brings to life a highly romantic, Gothic-infused world of wealth, desire, and betrayal. Orphaned as a baby, nineteen-year-old Signa has been raised by a string of guardians, each more interested in her wealth than her well-being--and each has met an untimely end. Her remaining relatives are the elusive Hawthornes, an eccentric family living at Thorn Grove, an estate both glittering and gloomy. Its patriarch mourns his late wife through wild parties, while his son grapples for control of the family's waning reputation and his daughter suffers from a mysterious illness. But when their mother's restless spirit appears claiming she was poisoned, Signa realizes that the family she depends on could be in grave danger and enlists the help of a surly stable boy to hunt down the killer. However, Signa's best chance of uncovering the murderer is an alliance with Death himself, a fascinating, dangerous shadow who has never been far from her side. Though he's made her life a living hell, Death shows Signa that their growing connection may be more powerful--and more irresistible--than she ever dared imagine.

Belladonna

8f445232-3896-4b9c-aaa4-5c4fc2b4fe09-1

Matthew Pearl

Florida

The Dante Club

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Elisabeth Thomas

Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free--but acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years, summers included, completely removed from the outside world. In return, the school promises a future of sublime power and prestige. Among this year's incoming class is Ines Murillo, who expects to trade blurry nights of parties, cruel friends, and dangerous men for rigorous intellectual discipline, only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. But the House's strange protocols soon make this refuge feel increasingly like a gilded prison.

Catherine House

58f13a8a-4063-471a-8a78-68e73054f770-1

Kass Morgan

Danielle Paige

Georgia

From New York Times best-selling authors Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige comes a thrilling, dark contemporary fantasy about a prestigious sorority of witches and two girls caught up in its world of sinister magic and betrayals.



At first glance, the sisters of ultra-exclusive Kappa Rho Nu--the Ravens--seem like typical sorority girls. Ambitious, beautiful, and smart, they're the most powerful girls on Westerly College's Savannah, Georgia, campus.



But the Ravens aren't just regular sorority girls. They're witches.



Scarlett Winter has always known she's a witch--and she's determined to be the sorority's president, just like her mother and sister before her. But if a painful secret from her past ever comes to light, she could lose absolutely everything . . .



Vivi Devereaux has no idea she's a witch and she's never lived in one place long enough to make a friend. So when she gets a coveted bid to pledge the Ravens, she vows to do whatever it takes to be part of the magical sisterhood. The only thing standing in her way is Scarlett, who doesn't think Vivi is Ravens material.



But when a dark power rises on campus, the girls will have to put their rivalry aside to save their fellow sisters. Someone has discovered the Ravens' secret. And that someone will do anything to see these witches burn . . .

 

The Ravens

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Before The Dante Chamber, there was The Dante Club: “an ingenious thriller that . . . brings Dante Alighieri’s Inferno to vivid, even unsettling life.”—The Boston Globe

“With intricate plots, classical themes, and erudite characters . . . what’s not to love?”—Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code and Origin

Boston, 1865. The literary geniuses of the Dante Club—poets and Harvard professors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell, along with publisher J. T. Fields—are finishing America’s first translation of The Divine Comedy. The powerful Boston Brahmins at Harvard College are fighting to keep Dante in obscurity, believing the infiltration of foreign superstitions to be as corrupting as the immigrants arriving at Boston Harbor.

But as the members of the Dante Club fight to keep a sacred literary cause alive, their plans fall apart when a series of murders erupts through Boston and Cambridge. Only this small group of scholars realizes that the gruesome killings are modeled on the descriptions of Hell’s punishments from Dante’s Inferno. With the lives of the Boston elite and Dante’s literary future in the New World at stake, the members of the Dante Club must find the killer before the authorities discover their secret.

Praise for The Dante Club

“Ingenious . . . [Matthew Pearl] keeps this mystery sparkling with erudition.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“Not just a page-turner but a beguiling look at the U.S. in an era when elites shaped the course of learning and publishing. With this story of the Dante Club’s own descent into hell, Mr. Pearl’s book will delight the Dante novice and expert alike.”—The Wall Street Journal

“[Pearl] ably meshes the . . . literary analysis with a suspenseful plot and in the process humanizes the historical figures. . . . A divine mystery.”—People (Page-turner of the Week)

“An erudite and entertaining account of Dante’s violent entrance into the American canon.”—Los Angeles Times

“A hell of a first novel . . . The Dante Club delivers in spades. . . . Pearl has crafted a work that maintains interest and drips with nineteenth-century atmospherics.”—San Francisco Chronicle

California

Alex Michaelides

Have never read 
Bought and left on shelf

Minnesota

**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**

"Alex Michaelides's long-awaited next novel, 'The Maidens,' is finally here...the premise is enticing and the elements irresistible."
--The New York Times

"A deliciously dark, elegant, utterly compulsive read--with a twist that blew my mind. I loved this even more than I loved The Silent Patient and that's saying something!"
--Lucy Foley, New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient comes a spellbinding tale of psychological suspense, weaving together Greek mythology, murder, and obsession, that further cements "Michaelides as a major player in the field" (Publishers Weekly).

Edward Fosca is a murderer. Of this Mariana is certain. But Fosca is untouchable. A handsome and charismatic Greek tragedy professor at Cambridge University, Fosca is adored by staff and students alike--particularly by the members of a secret society of female students known as The Maidens.

Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana's niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge.

Mariana, who was once herself a student at the university, quickly suspects that behind the idyllic beauty of the spires and turrets, and beneath the ancient traditions, lies something sinister. And she becomes convinced that, despite his alibi, Edward Fosca is guilty of the murder. But why would the professor target one of his students? And why does he keep returning to the rites of Persephone, the maiden, and her journey to the underworld?

When another body is found, Mariana's obsession with proving Fosca's guilt spirals out of control, threatening to destroy her credibility as well as her closest relationships. But Mariana is determined to stop this killer, even if it costs her everything--including her own life.

The Maidens

70ca1172-a81f-4dd6-a1ac-1945e068d22f

Katie Lowe

This page-turning, harrowing debut from Katie Lowe is the story of a girl trying to fit in, whose obsessive new friends and desperation to belong leads her to places she'd never imagined...dark, dangerous, and possibly even violent.

"Fans of Greer Macallister, Paula Hawkins, and Janelle Brown will devour Violet's journey." --Booklist on The Furies

~~~

In 1998, a sixteen-year-old girl is found dead.

She's posed on a swing on her boarding school's property, dressed all in white, with no known cause of death. Whispers and rumors swirl, with no answers. But there are a few who know what happened; there is one girl who will never forget.

One year earlier: a new student, Violet, steps on the campus of Elm Hollow Academy, an all-girl's boarding school on the outskirts of a sleepy coastal town. This is her fresh start, her chance to begin again in the wake of tragedy, leave her demons behind. Bright but a little strange, uncertain and desperate to fit in, she soon finds herself invited to an advanced study group, led by her alluring and mysterious art teacher, Annabel.

There, with three other girls--Alex, Grace, and Robin--the five of them delve into the school's long-buried grim history: of Greek and Celtic legends; of the school founder's "academic" interest in the occult; of gruesome 17th century witch trials. Annabel does her best to convince the girls that her classes aren't related to ancient rites and rituals, and that they are just history and mythology. But the more she tries to warn the girls off the topic, the more they are drawn toit, and the possibility that they can harness magic for themselves.

Violet quickly finds herself wrapped up in this heady new world of lawless power--except she is needled by the disappearance of a former member of the group, one with whom Violet shares an uncanny resemblance. As her friends' actions take a turn for the darker and spiral out of control, she begins to wonder who she can trust, all the while becoming more deeply entangled. How far will these young girls go to protect one another...or to destroy one another?

The Furies

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From the New York Times bestselling author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver comes the story of an unwilling dark sorceress who is destined to rewrite the rules of magic. I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life. Everyone loves Orion Lake. Everyone else, that is. Far as I'm concerned, he can keep his flashy combat magic to himself. I'm not joining his pack of adoring fans. I don't need help surviving the Scholomance, even if they do. Forget the hordes of monsters and cursed artifacts. I'm probably the most dangerous thing in the place. Just give me a chance and I'll level mountains and kill untold millions, make myself the dark queen of the world. At least, that's what the world expects me to do. Most of the other students in here would be delighted if Orion killed me like one more evil thing that's crawled out of the drains. Sometimes I think they want me to turn into the evil witch they assume I am. The school itself certainly does. But the Scholomance isn't getting what it wants from me. And neither is Orion Lake. I may not be anyone's idea of the shining hero, but I'm going to make it out of this place alive, and I'm not going to slaughter thousands to do it, either. Although I'm giving serious consideration to just one. With flawless mastery, Naomi Novik creates a heroine for the ages--a character so sharply realized and so richly nuanced that she will live on in hearts and minds for generations to come.

#paperback #fiction #fantasy #fantasyfiction #darkacademia #adeadlyeducation #bestseller 

New Hampshire

Washington

"Exceptional. This surprising, exhilarating suspense-filled tale of revenge and redemption is hard to put down." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

My Dark Vanessa meets The Queen's Gambit in this new novel of suspense about the bonds of family, the limits of talent, the risks of ambition, and the rewards of revenge.

When former piano prodigy Saskia Kreis returns home to Milwaukee after her mother's unexpected death, she expects to inherit the family estate, the Elf House. But with the discovery that her mother's will bequeathed the Elf House to a man that Saskia shares a complicated history with, she is forced to reexamine her own past--and the romantic relationship that changed the course of her life--for answers. Can she find a way to claim her heritage while keeping her secrets buried, or will the fallout from digging too deep destroy her?

Set against a post #MeToo landscape, Rachel Kapelke-Dale's The Ingenue delves into mother-daughter relationships, the expectations of talent, the stories we tell ourselves, and what happens when the things that once made you special are taken from you. Moving between Saskia's childhood and the present day, this dark, contemporary fairy tale pulses with desire, longing, and uncertainty, as it builds to its spectacular, shocking climax.

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Adriana Mather

Killing November

Leigh Bardugo

Hell Bent

R. O. Kwon

The Incendiaries

Faridah Abike-Iyimide

Ace of Spades

Olivie Blake

The Atlas Six

Donna Tartt

The Secret History

Naomi Novik

A Deadly Education

Leigh Bardugo

Ninth House

Richelle Mead

Frostbite

M. L. Rio

If We Were Villains

M. L. Rio

If We Were Villains

Adalyn Grace

Belladonna

Matthew Pearl

The Dante Club

Elisabeth Thomas

Catherine House

Kass Morgan; Danielle Paige

The Ravens

Matthew Pearl

The Dante Club

Alex Michaelides

The Maidens

Katie Lowe

The Furies

Naomi Novik

A Deadly Education

Alex Michaelides

The Maidens

Naomi Novik

A Deadly Education

Adalyn Grace

Belladonna

Matthew Pearl

The Dante Club

Rachel Kapelke-Dale

The Ingenue