Verdict: A lush, gothic dark-academia vampire romance that reimagines Carmilla as a poisonous rivalry-to-romance between two students — sumptuous prose and atmosphere for days, though its thin plot and divisive pacing mean it lands harder for mood readers than plot readers.
Best for: Readers who want dark academia and vampires over crime or mafia — think intellectual rivalry, blood, obsession, gothic New England atmosphere, and a professor with her own dangerous fixation.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ (moderate-to-high — sensual and charged, with explicit scenes woven through the rivalry)
Rating: ★★★★ (3.48 average on Goodreads across roughly 25,000 ratings — a genuinely divisive book with a devoted following and vocal detractors)
Tropes: dark academia · academic rivals to lovers · vampires · Carmilla retelling · professor’s dark obsession · gothic New England · blood & ceremony
If you’ve been working through our dark sapphic romance recommendations, An Education in Malice is the shelf’s definitive dark-academia entry — and one of its most polarizing. From S.T. Gibson, author of the cult hit A Dowry of Blood, it takes the bones of Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla and rebuilds them into a story about ambition, hunger, and desire at a sinister women’s college. Here’s an honest look at what dazzles, what frustrates, and who it’s really for.
What Is An Education in Malice About?
Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua’s College — isolated, ancient, and no place for timid girls. Here secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold. On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful, enigmatic Carmilla, and the two are drawn into the orbit of their demanding poetry professor, De Lafontaine — who nurses her own dark obsession with Carmilla.
As the rivalry curdles into something far more delicious, Laura is forced to confront her own strange hungers, tangled in a sinister game of politics, bloodthirsty professors, and dark magic. It’s a standalone gothic dark-academia novel, running about 352 pages, first published in February 2024, and it shares a spiritual lineage (and a vampiric sensibility) with Gibson’s breakout A Dowry of Blood.
What Makes This Dark Academia Romance Work
When An Education in Malice works for a reader, it works on atmosphere and prose. Here’s what fans consistently praise:
- Gorgeous, sensual prose. Gibson writes in a rich, poetic register, and the language is the star — blood, hunger, and desire rendered in lines readers highlight and reread.
- A perfect dark-academia mood. Saint Perpetua’s isolated New England campus, its ceremonies and secrets, and the poetry-classroom setting deliver the gothic academic atmosphere the sub-genre lives for.
- Rivalry that turns romantic. The Laura–Carmilla dynamic is built on competition and intellectual obsession — “I want to defeat her almost as much as I want her” — which gives the romance its charge.
- A knowing Carmilla retelling. Reworking Le Fanu’s classic sapphic vampire novella, it rewards readers who love seeing gothic source material reimagined with modern queerness front and center.
- A dangerous third point. Professor De Lafontaine’s obsession adds a predatory power dynamic that deepens the darkness beyond a simple student romance.
Book Synopsis
Saint Perpetua’s College sits alone in the Massachusetts hills, old and secretive, a place where ambition is survival and initiation comes with strange rites. Laura Sheridan arrives ready to prove herself and immediately finds her rival: Carmilla, magnetic, unnerving, and impossible to ignore. Their sparring in the poetry seminar of the exacting Professor De Lafontaine sharpens into a fascination neither can look away from.
But De Lafontaine has her own designs on Carmilla, and Saint Perpetua’s hides appetites more literal than academic. As Laura is pulled deeper into blood, ceremony, and the school’s dark politics, the line between rivalry and desire dissolves, and she must decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice — and become — to get what she wants. An Education in Malice is a standalone gothic dark-academia romance.
My Review
What you think of An Education in Malice will depend almost entirely on what you came for. If you’re here for prose and atmosphere, Gibson delivers in abundance: the writing is sumptuous, the campus drips with gothic dread, and the slow poisoning of rivalry into desire between Laura and Carmilla is genuinely intoxicating when it lands. This is a book to sink into for mood, texture, and a very specific dark-academia fantasy — blood, poetry, and hunger in a haunted New England college.
Where it divides readers is structure. The 3.48 Goodreads average across some 25,000 ratings tells the story: this is a love-it-or-frustrate-you book. The most common criticisms are consistent and fair to name — the plot is thin and slow, the vampire and dark-magic elements can feel underdeveloped, and the central romance sometimes reads more as vibe than fully earned connection. Readers who adored the tight, aching intimacy of A Dowry of Blood sometimes find this one more diffuse.
My honest take: go in for the atmosphere and the rivalry, not for propulsive plot or deep worldbuilding, and set your expectations toward “mood-driven gothic romance” rather than horror or fantasy proper. Do that, and the prose and the Laura–Carmilla tension are worth the price of admission. Come in wanting a tightly plotted vampire thriller, and the pacing will test you. Because it deals in blood, predatory professor dynamics, and dark ceremony, it’s also a book where the content notes matter.
Tropes & Themes at a Glance
| Element | In An Education in Malice |
| Category | Gothic dark-academia sapphic romance / vampire romance |
| Central relationship | Laura × Carmilla — academic rivals turned lovers, shadowed by a professor’s obsession |
| Core tropes | Dark academia, rivals to lovers, vampires, Carmilla retelling, forbidden professor fixation, blood & ceremony |
| Setting | Saint Perpetua’s College — an isolated, ancient women’s college in the Massachusetts hills |
| Heat level | 🌶️🌶️🌶️ Moderate-to-high — sensual, charged, with explicit scenes |
| Series | Standalone (~352 pages); shares a sensibility with A Dowry of Blood |
| Content notes | Blood, predatory professor/student power dynamics, dark ritual, obsession (check the author’s notes for the full list) |
How Spicy Is An Education in Malice?
Moderately to fairly. On our five-chili scale it’s about 🌶️🌶️🌶️. The intimacy is sensual and charged rather than relentlessly explicit — there are open-door scenes, but the eroticism is as much about hunger, power, and atmosphere as it is about the physical acts. The blood-and-desire imagery gives the heat a gothic, predatory edge that fits the vampire framing.
A fair note that recurs in reviews: because so much of the tension lives in mood and rivalry, some readers wanted either more heat or more plot to hang it on. If you’re reading purely for spice, temper expectations — this is atmospheric sensuality, not a high-heat romance in the mafia or D/s register.
Who Should Read This Book?
Whether An Education in Malice works for you comes down to which door you walk in through.
You’ll likely love it if: you read for prose and atmosphere first, you adore dark academia and gothic mood, you want a sapphic Carmilla retelling with vampires and blood, and you enjoy a rivalry-to-romance built on intellectual obsession more than fast plot.
You may want to skip it if: you need tight plotting, propulsive stakes, or deep worldbuilding — the most common criticisms are that the plot is thin and slow and the supernatural elements underbaked. If you’re also sensitive to predatory professor/student dynamics or graphic blood imagery, weigh the content notes carefully.
In short: it’s divisive precisely because it prioritizes mood over machinery. Come for the atmosphere, the prose, and the poisonous romance, and it rewards you; come for a plot-driven vampire thriller, and you may be checking the page count.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is An Education in Malice a standalone?
Yes. It’s a self-contained gothic dark-academia novel with a complete arc — no series commitment required. It shares a sensibility (and a vampiric streak) with S.T. Gibson’s A Dowry of Blood, but the stories are separate.
Is it a true sapphic romance?
Yes. The central romance is between two women, Laura and Carmilla, and their sapphic rivalry-to-desire is the heart of the book. Professor De Lafontaine’s obsession with Carmilla adds a darker, predatory third thread rather than a competing love interest for Laura.
How steamy is it, really?
Moderately — around three chilies. It’s sensual and charged with open-door scenes, but the eroticism leans on hunger, blood, and power rather than sheer frequency. Read it for atmospheric heat, not for a high-spice page count.
Do I need to read A Dowry of Blood first?
No. They’re unconnected stories, so you can start here. That said, if you love Gibson’s style, A Dowry of Blood is the natural companion read and is often the more beloved of the two.
Why is the rating lower than other S.T. Gibson books?
It’s genuinely divisive. Fans praise the prose and atmosphere; critics find the plot thin and the pacing slow, which drags the average toward 3.48. It’s best understood as a mood-driven gothic romance — readers who want that tend to rate it highly, while plot-first readers often don’t.
If You Loved An Education in Malice, Read These Next
If the gothic academia and vampire romance worked for you, you’ll find more in the same register on our dark sapphic romance recommendations guide — including S.T. Gibson’s A Dowry of Blood for toxic vampire devotion, plus other gothic, dark-fantasy, and dark-academia picks across a range of heat and darkness levels. It’s the best next stop for matching the exact flavor of darkness you enjoy.
The Bottom Line
An Education in Malice is a sumptuous, atmospheric gothic dark-academia romance that succeeds enormously on prose and mood and frustrates readers who need plot and pace. Its Carmilla-inspired rivalry, its blood-and-poetry sensuality, and its haunted-college atmosphere have earned it a devoted following; its thin plotting and slow burn have left others cold — hence the divisive 3.48 average. If you know you’re here for gothic mood and a poisonous sapphic rivalry, and you’re patient with the pacing, it’s an easy recommendation. Check An Education in Malice on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
Our house scorecard, weighing the book across the dimensions that matter most to dark sapphic romance readers.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall — ★★★½ 3.5/5
- ✓ A sumptuous gothic dark-academia vampire romance.
- ✓ A divisive 3.48 Goodreads average across 25,000+ ratings.
- ✓ From S.T. Gibson, author of the cult hit A Dowry of Blood.
- ✓ A love-it-or-frustrate-you mood piece, not a plot-driven thriller.
Romance — ★★★★ 4.0/5
- ✓ The Laura–Carmilla rivalry-to-desire crackles with tension.
- ✓ Intellectual obsession gives the attraction a sharp edge.
- ✓ A professor’s dark fixation deepens the dangerous dynamic.
- ✓ Poisonous and charged, if more mood than fully earned.
Characters — ★★★½ 3.7/5
- ✓ Carmilla is magnetic, enigmatic, and unsettling.
- ✓ Laura’s ambition and hunger drive her arc.
- ✓ De Lafontaine adds a predatory, gothic menace.
- ✓ Some readers wanted deeper interiority for the leads.
Writing — ★★★★½ 4.5/5
- ✓ Gorgeous, poetic prose is the book’s clear strength.
- ✓ Blood, hunger, and desire rendered in highlightable lines.
- ✓ A masterfully sustained gothic atmosphere.
- ✓ The language alone wins over many readers.
Emotional Impact — ★★★½ 3.6/5
- ✓ The yearning and obsession simmer effectively.
- ✓ The gothic dread gives scenes a haunting weight.
- ✓ A diffuse plot sometimes softens the emotional stakes.
- ✓ Lands hardest for mood-driven readers.
Heat Level — ★★★½ 3.5/5
- ✓ Sensual and charged with open-door scenes.
- ✓ Blood-and-desire imagery gives the heat a gothic edge.
- ✓ Eroticism leans on hunger and power over frequency.
- ✓ Atmospheric sensuality rather than high-spice.
Ending — ★★★½ 3.5/5
- ✓ A complete, self-contained resolution.
- ✓ The rivalry and obsession converge by the finish.
- ✓ Some readers wanted a punchier climax.
- ✓ Satisfying for a mood-first gothic romance.
Re-read Value — ★★★★ 3.9/5
- ✓ A comfort re-read for dark-academia and prose lovers.
- ✓ The atmosphere rewards a slow second pass.
- ✓ A complete standalone story.
- ✓ Distinctive enough within the genre to revisit.
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