Oh my gosh...this dark lesbian academia keeps haunting me long after I have turned off my e-reader...Taylor Swift's "No Body No Crime" lingers in the air as Felicity and Ellis work together, and I keep being reminded of beloved favorites such as TRULY DEVIOUS, PLAIN BAD HEROINES, and A DEADLY EDUCATION. If you love lesbians, dark academia, and supernatural incidents, you NEED to grab a copy of "A Lesson In Vengeance!"

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.

A Lesson in Vengeance appealed to me from the moment I first heard about it. I’ve always liked school settings, even if I don’t seek them out very much, and while I didn’t know dark academia was what it was called prior to seeing the buzz around this book, I find I really like that aesthetic, with it being set in modern times, but with a school setting that highlights history through art, architecture, and literature.

As a result, the general vibe was the first thing that grabbed me. I loved the immersive, creepy feel of the school grounds and the different buildings with Gothic architecture. It serves as a perfect backdrop for the dark events that take place over the course of the story.

Lee has shown in her previous work that she favors characters who are morally ambiguous and are dealing with trauma. This time, it’s no different, and in fact, there are serious questions around Felicity’s mental state, which are confirmed in what Lee has said about the book in a note on Goodreads, in that this book reflects her own experience with psychotic depression. While this characterization isn’t going to work for everyone, it works with the aesthetic, and I was willing to let myself get swept up in a journey with a character who doesn’t always have the most reliable perspective of events.

And the pacing…it perfectly balances keeping you on your toes and flipping pages to find out what’s next, while also conveying deeper messages about mental illness and trauma, gender and sexuality, morality, and class.

I enjoyed this a lot, and I love the way it captured many elements I adore in fiction. If a thriller about morally gray lesbians and dark academia sounds great to you, I definitely recommend picking this up!

A Lesson in Vengeance is certainly a dark psychological thriller that will have you wondering about the roles of witches, seances, ghosts and the murders in this novel. Victoria did such a splendid penning of this tale with Felicity' s past ghosts and Ellis' present demands that the reader is kept in suspense throughout. I expressly loved the setting and the conclusion.

Thank you to Delacorte Press and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

A Lesson in Vengeance follows Felicity Morrow, a student at Dalloway School – the school she called home until the death of her girlfriend. After a year off-campus she returns to graduate, inhabiting her old dorm room that is rumored to be haunted by five witches that died mysteriously on the campus grounds. Felicity is determined to leave this world behind and focus on graduating. But when first-year Ellis Hayley requests Felicity’s help researching the Dalloway Five, Felicity can’t say no.

I’ve been eyeing A Lesson in Vengeance since I first found out about it in anticipated lists and I’m so glad I finally read it. Lee’s writing was mesmerizing, the setting was absolutely atmospheric, and I just could not put this book down.

After reading this book, I find myself wanting to look for more dark academia books to read. But so much of that love for me comes from the setting and the writing, which Lee did an incredible job of portraying. From page one this book delivers just the right amount of unsettled feelings at the right time, combined with the cozy atmosphere of books, candles, records, and overall a place seemingly free of modern technology. It became a hauntingly comfortable escape to immerse myself in this story.

Not only that, but A Lesson in Vengeance had me hooked all the way through. Not only did I find myself wanting to stay up to find out what happened next, but I also found myself reaching for the book first thing in the morning – and as someone who seldom reads this early, this says a lot. The last quarter of the book was especially addicting, so much so that I had to delay my current plans so I could know the ending.

While this story describes the Dalloway Five and the presence of witches, I should note that this book isn’t as full of magic as the synopsis might imply. The story was great regardless, but the story definitely focuses more on the history of possible magic, and less so on the modern-day incarnations.

My one only critique of this book was the perceived age and maturity of the characters in this book. The characters are high-school age, and while it’s possible that being at a boarding school for so long can call for the characters to be this mature at a young age, there were times I questioned whether their behavior was realistic for their age. I think this story would have made more sense set as college seniors. While I loved this alternate view of a school where the students were rejecting technology and devoting themselves to their studies, there were times where I was reminded this might not be as plausible for their ages.

Regardless, I really loved reading A Lesson in Vengeance and highly recommend it. I think any fans of dark academia will want to pick this one up soon.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Children's Books for a digital ARC of A Lesson in Vengeance!

This book is DARK! For some reason I thought this book was a fantasy….Nope! This is most definitely a psychological thriller and I could not put it down. Told from the singular POV of an unreliable narrator, you spend the entire time questioning what is real and what is just in Felicity’s head. I had to keep reading to find out what was going on. This book is twisty, witchy, and yes, it is sapphic. But above all, it is a portrayal of the difficulties of mental health and it is EXTREMELY meta in doing so.

Based on the author’s own experience with psychotic depression, we see the complexities of Felicity’s own mental health. As I said, this book is very dark and the horror aspect is intimately tied with the nuances of Felicity’s mental state and self-perception. We are both sympathetic towards her and unsettled by her story. Please check trigger warnings as this book will not be suitable for everyone. In fact, my main concern is that this should have been written and published as an adult book. The story could just as easily have taken place in a college setting and allowed for a more in-depth exploration of many of the more mature elements.

Thank you to the publisher, Penguin Teen, and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Felicity Morrow has returned to Dalloway School to redo her final year after she had to take some time away to recover from her girlfriend, Alex’s death. She is determined to move past all that and focus on graduating, but when Ellis Haley, a new student and prodigy writer, asks for help researching the Dalloway Five, the mystery of five students who died on campus centuries ago in incidents proclaimed as witchcraft, Felicity can’t help but be drawn back into her fascination with the occult. As a method writer, Ellis wants to recreate the murders and disprove the existence of witchcraft, but when history starts to repeat itself, Felicity becomes convinced that not only is Alex’s ghost haunting her, but also the spirit of one of the five students out to get revenge on her for the events of the past year.

So I’ve managed to stumble into a second dark academia novel in a matter of weeks, just proving that the genre really isn’t for me. However, I enjoyed this a lot more than Ace of Spades for one main reason: the book was so atmospheric. Right from the first page, it was easy to imagine the setting of Dalloway School and its eerie history and it was the perfect backdrop for this story. A Lesson in Vengeance was a fast paced read that held my attention throughout and I enjoyed the many twists and turns in the story.

We see the entire story through Felicity’s eyes, and it’s quite obvious pretty early on that she is an extremely unreliable narrator. I usually tend to dislike this trope, but I liked how it was handled in this book. The way Felicity’s experiences and feelings are portrayed makes the reader really start to question things, wondering if she is delusional and imagining whatever is happening around her due to her obsession with witchcraft, if someone is messing with her on purpose – or if there really is something more sinister going on? While I wasn’t a huge fan of Felicity, she was a very interesting main character and made the story that much more gripping when the story turns into psychological thriller territory partway through the book.

This was undoubtedly a suspenseful read, and the tension was maintained throughout – though I did start suspecting the truth about halfway through. The issue I had was that this didn’t fit for a high school setting. I felt like they were way too independent considering they’re at boarding school. It might have worked better with older characters in college, similar to Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House, especially since the girls didn’t really behave like typical teenagers at all, disdaining technology and quoting poetry and literature. It’s not that there’s any inappropriate content per se, but given the general feel of this book and the behavior of the characters, in my opinion, the only thing that made this YA was their age.

As for the ending, Felicity’s arc is satisfactorily resolved, though what actually happened to Alex is never made clear. Additionally, I was hoping there might be some insight provided into the Dalloway Five and the truth behind it all, but that is left as a mystery. Overall, this was an interesting read, though the magic and witchcraft aspect could have been integrated better. Just as a note, this story delves a lot into mental health and trauma, so I would definitely advise checking out the list of content warnings that the author has posted on their website just to be safe. If you like thrillers with a touch of the supernatural, I would highly recommend this book.

Prompted by an eccentric and charismatic new student at her boarding school, a troubled teen returns to her study of the school's historical witches--and her own dabbling in witchcraft--to search for answers about the tragic death of her girlfriend.

This novel walks the line between psychological thriller and horror. (For me, most of the suspense came from the atmosphere and the questionable sanity of the narrator, so it felt more like Kingian horror than a thriller.) Character drives the novel, and though the key reveals weren't particularly surprising, the suspense and tension are so high throughout that I had trouble putting it down. I'd recommend it to fans of the genre(s), especially readers who enjoyed books like WHEN ALL THE GIRLS ARE SLEEPING by Emily Arsenault.

There were a few times I was confused about what was happening in this story. One of the things I had a hard time with was figuring out what Felicity was thinking or dreaming, versus what was happening. This adds to the atmosphere, but can make it difficult to follow at times. I found the twists interesting enough to keep me reading, but sometimes the witch aspect was kind of melodramatic. I found the book just ok overall.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This has been one of my most anticipated releases of the year. I really enjoyed Victoria Lee’s The Fever King and have been really excited to read another book from them. I was so intrigued when I heard that this book would be a sapphic dark academia story. Overall, I did enjoy it, but I do, unfortunately, feel like something was missing for me. It just didn’t really reach the expectations and excitement I had for it.

There was a lot that I really did enjoy about this book. The premise was so intriguing, and it had so many elements that appeal to me like boarding schools, pretentious students, sapphics, literature, horror, murder, witches, and so on. Lee’s writing is also really great, and there were so many times where I could clearly picture the setting and feel the atmosphere. I really enjoyed the Dalloway school and the spooky vibes. I feel like this would be a really great book to read around Halloween to get into the spooky spirit.

That being said, I never really got invested in the characters. This could be partially due to the mystery, Felicity as an unreliable narrator, or just the characters’ general attitudes, but the characters felt pretty distant to me, and I never completely bought into the relationship between Felicity and Ellis. I feel like I wish it was just “more” in general. I think I would have liked it better if this was an adult book or set in a college setting rather than with teenagers. I feel like there were some dark moments, but that they never fully went all the way, and some of the aspects I was interested in like the witches or the secret society/club were not explored as much as I would have liked. I also felt like the mystery was not that mysterious and some of it was fairly predictable.

Unfortunately, I was somewhat let down by this book. I still liked it, but I think I hyped it up too much for myself. I know many people are excited for this book, though, and I think a lot of them will love this, especially fans of dark academia. I would definitely still recommend this book to people, even if it wasn’t quite what I expected, and I will still read anything that Victoria Lee writes in the future.

First things first: I was not able to finish reading A Lesson in Vengeance, not because it was bad, because it’s not, not at all. It was more like a me thing.

I stopped at 20% and couldn’t continue anymore for various reasons. Victoria Lee’s writing was smooth as silk and the first person narrative will make you feel every pain, fear and trauma the main character, Felicity, is going through. The writing was so good and was so effective, and it was the reason why I had to stop - because I’m starting to get carried away and my emotions became messed up. So to speak, it was not the right book for my current mental state.

Fans of dark academia would surely love A Lesson in Vengeance and I am hoping to finish this story in the future when I am feeling braver and better.

Trigger warnings:
Grief
Trauma

Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for providing me an advanced digital copy to review.

The perfect thriller for lovers of literature! Read this one with a notebook, prepared to jot down names of long-loved authors and creepy tales that you will want to read next. Also, super shocking ending!

Reading A Lesson in Vengeance was something akin to watching lightning strike in slow motion. Mesmerizing, gothic, breath-taking, exciting and terrifying all at once- you knew a crash was coming but you can’t predict the path it would take.
A Lesson in Vengeance follows Felicity Morrow the year after her girlfriend and classmate at Dalloway School dies and everyone thinks she did it. Recovering from a mental breakdown and just trying to take on her senior year again, Felicity is thrown for a loop by Ellis Haley, the best selling novelist and writing prodigy now living in Alex’s room and writing about Dalloway’s dark and twisted past. As the line between what’s real and what’s not begins to blur and ghosts of the past continue to haunt Felicity, can she truly move on or will Ellis dig up old secrets and new skeletons that make it impossible?
I would also say A Lesson in Vengeance thoroughly delivers on the premise of lesbian dark academia thriller. Like yes yes and yes. Also can i just take a moment to salute Victoria Lee for so wonderfully combining such great elements for one hell of a hook. When this book was pitched to me, I basically leaned forward more with every word that was said. Like what do you mean we get lesbian and dark academia and witches and murder thriller and all of that all in one? Yes yes yes yes yes yes.
Okay, onto the gritty details, because it needs to be said, there are a few trigger warnings in this book. The ones i can think of off the top of my head are underrage drinking, neglectful parent, murder, gaslighting, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts to start. There is probably more that I’m blanking on but those are the ones I'm remembering right now. As fantastically woven and fascinating as this book is, I would definitely say it is not for the faint of heart and if you struggle with mental health or mental illness, proceed gingerly and take care of yourself. All that being said, I am someone who has depression and anxiety but because I proceeded carefully and with warning from a friend, I was able to read it and have a good time. It may not be the book for everyone, which is fine but it is still a really wonderful and atmospheric and fantastically creepy book. I tend to really limit myself with how much thrillers and dark and creepy books I read because I try to be very thoughtful about how much I let my reading affect me and try to be aware of the effect they can have on me but I’m glad I made the exception for this one. It managed to feel but completely unexpected and inevitable and so delicious. Lee weaves a dark and complicated web but, if you can handle it, well worth the journey and one that will leave you with goosebumps. Buckle up y’all!

I enjoyed this book having an unreliable narrator made the twists even more effective. From the beginning, you had to decide if magic was real or if the narrator was crazy. It added to the psychological thriller aspect.

I have a soft spot in my heart from books that mess with me a little. The exquisite mindfuckery of this novel exploited that in the best way possible!

Felicity Morrow is at Dalloway School for Girls for her senior year... again. She only made it a few months into the last school year before the accident that killed her “best friend” Alex knocked her entire life off course. Felicity has become an uncomfortable curiosity, almost universally outcast by every girl at the school with the exception of Ellis Haley. Ellis is the new “it” student, a prodigy author, and seemingly a kindred spirit to Felicity. After all, they’re both deeply entrenched in the school’s ancient history of magic, murder, and witches. Ellis asks Felicity to help her research for her new book about the Dalloway witches, but there’s one problem: Felicity did some ritualistic “research” of her own that may have led to Alex’s death, and the dark spirit she conjured may still be haunting her.

Felicity is a thrilling portrait of an unreliable narrator. She is traumatized and questioning all the relationships around her in the wake of that trauma, but she’s messed with the occult as well. Is she truly haunted or dealing with mental illness? Is she telling the whole truth about her past or is there more to unravel? Is Ellis an inspiration or an enabler? The novel slowly unveils each detail with a dark precision and allows readers to savor each page.

Ellis is a fascinating character in her own right-- A study of the cult of personality who brings the very different girls of Godwin House together under her magnanimous umbrella. Everyone wants to impress Ellis, no one quite meets her standards, and the web she weaves around them is both predatory and maternal all at once. But does that make her a bad person or just a teenage girl with a little too much social capital for her own good? Her relationship with Felicity, both on the surface and romantically, is the most interesting part of the story by far.

The characters are thoroughly pretentious for teenagers, even genius teenagers, which does make the reading a little difficult to swallow at times. These characters make John Green characters look like uneducated heathens. Felicity is studying the exact psychology that the book is about, which is pretty meta. These details would work better if the characters were college age or older, but obviously, I’m willing to forgive it.

There are multiple twists and while they aren’t always completely unpredictable, you never quite know how it's going to happen even if you think you know what is going to happen. Typically, it was one of multiple guesses I made because the story feels like it could go in several directions at any time. There was one major twist that I didn’t see coming at all that hit like a glorious ton of bricks as I was practically crushed by the awesome realization, all the small details coming together in my mind.

More than anything, I had fun reading this book in a way I haven’t in a while. I questioned and second-guessed everything. I savored the dark elements, no matter how improbable, and just really fell into this spooky, sexy, dark academia vibe.

*4.5

A Lesson in Vegeance is an intense Dark Academia, absolutely perfect for fan of If we were villains.

It takes place in a boarding school haunted by its history of witchcraft, as it says in plot, it's not properly a fantasy but more a psychological book which interrogates if magic is real or not.

It concentrates especially on the past traumas and mind of the characters which was extremely interesting because we don't have the classic perfect heroine as a protagonist.
Instead we get Felicity, who is still in a weak state of mind after the death of her girlfriend and who is not exactly a saint, we could define her as great character (and you know that those characters are the best).
I also found extremely intriguing, Ellis, the new prodigy girl at school, even if we don't know a lot about her. The author willingly depicts her as a misterious and strong willed figure and we don't get to know about her thoughts until the end.
About this aspect, I would have loved a double pov, I think it would have made the book more "complete" and it would have been easier to understand the reasons behind the character's actions.

Still this was a great read and I totally recommend it to dark academia fans.

I absolutely adored this book! Perfect for any fans of dark academia! It, did however, take me a while to get into it but those slow pages were still enjoyable none the less

Huh. Well, that was a bit lackluster.

I had high hopes going into this book, but it never really lived up to them. It's terribly predictable, there weren't any big twists or 'wow' moments for me. The characters are pretty unlikable and a few of them felt thrown in the story just because the author wanted more diversity.

I felt like the start of the book had great bones, but it just tapered off as I got closer and closer to the end...and then, it just ended. Overall it's a haunting story wrapped up in a bit of mystery and darkness. It's a good read if you aren't expecting too much out of the plot.


Thank you Delacorte Press via NetGalley for the e-ARC to read and honestly review.

I love love love dark academia novels and mysteries and sapphic heroines! Victoria Lee did not disappoint with this one. I was scared because I really enjoyed the Feverwake series and didn't know what to expect out of this one, but I was pleasantly surprised.

- Lesbian. Dark. Academia. Need I say more?
- Okay okay, I'll say a little more. I loved falling into the history and mythology of Dalloway with Felicity. A LESSON IN VENGEANCE had me second guessing myself, mistrusting everyone, and watching helplessly as the train jumped the tracks.
- I have some minor quibbles with the pacing, but when things get going, they REALLY get going. There are a couple points where new information is dropped and my jaw dropped along with it.

I’m a fan of this author’s Feverwake series and had the pleasure of meeting her at a local book event a couple years ago. When I saw she had a new release coming up, I jumped to request it on NetGalley.

Dark, twisty atmospheric thriller is a perfect description for this novel, and a centuries old campus is the ultimate setting. The story begins with the MC, Felicity, returning to campus to repeat her senior year after dropping out halfway through it the previous year due to the tragic death of her girlfriend. The house Felicity and four other students reside in is rumored to be haunted by the Dalloway Five – women who were supposedly witches. All died hundreds of years ago on the grounds under mysterious circumstances. The story of these women enthralled Felicity enough that she researched them extensively for her thesis prior to leaving the previous year. She immersed herself in their history and experimented with witchcraft – maybe a little too much – and began seeing a therapist after leaving school. Upon returning, she’s determined to steer clear of anything involving witchcraft and concentrate on her studies. Things change when Ellis, a new student, arrives. Felicity is immediately drawn to her, and Ellis has a way of pulling – or pushing – Felicity into questionable situations using logic that sounds reasonable.

It’s clear early on that Felicity may be an unreliable narrator, and I love that angle in a novel. She’s convinced the ghost of her ex-girlfriend is haunting her, and eerie things happen that may send chills up your spine. After she and her ex used a ouija board to contact one of the dead witches the previous year, Felicity also wonders if she’s cursed. Is she being haunted or is someone trying to manipulate her?

The students at this boarding school are on a different level from your average high school students, and their conversations are intellectual and thought-provoking as they lounge around and drink Old Fashioneds. Honestly, the complexity of their school assignments gave me a headache. The characters read much older than they are. Ellis, at only seventeen-years-old, has just won a Pulitzer Prize for her first novel (some suspension of disbelief is required). She’s working on her second novel and the research she invites Felicity to help her with is morbid and unsettling. Did I mention this book is dark?

The ending is comparable to a strategic chess match, but I’m surprised one character, usually several steps ahead of everyone else, didn’t see it coming. If you’re a fan of dark tales, morally gray characters, and potentially unreliable narrators, find a cozy reading space where you won’t be disturbed and allow yourself to sink into this novel.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.