I'm rather late to providing feedback to this book, but I absolutely adored the entire story. I think the angst was done so well, and the mystery kept me intrigued. The audiobook was narrated AMAZINGLY and it's one of the main things that kept me hooked!

This book was very transporative and I loved the world building and the African lore that set the stage for the plot. Everyone was morally grey and I enjoyed the viciousness in which they lived their lives. The trauma that every character went through was what shaped them and nobody left unscathed. It was definitely an interesting take on vampires and I cannot wait for the next book.

On the narrator, however, is where it fell flat. The writing and plot are so strong and so passionate which is what propelled this book into a 5 star for me. The narrator did not bring the book to life enough and did not change her voice enough to differentiate between who was speaking and I sometimes found myself confused. If I could choose, I would choose to read this book with my eyes instead of listen to it.

Oh. My. Gosh this book was absolutely perfect! It was the perfect spooky season read, and really has me dying to read more dark academia. It was witty, thrilling, captivating, and just ultimately an all around amazing book!

The premise had me hooked… but. This book has vampires, dark academia, secret societies. The beginning of this book is great and the pacing starts out great, but didn’t finish as strong as I was hoping it would. This is a good debut and I’m excited to see what else this author brings us.

Rating: No Rating // DNF on audio
4.25 stars for reading physical

Great narration by Jordan Cobb! Truly great work showcasing each characters in the story.

This novel does seem interesting to me! I never read a black vampire novel! So much hype and excitement has been done around this book and I legit have been counting down for the official release! With much anticipation, I am left feeling a little bit confused and super disconnected with the story. It starts on an extremely strong foot in the prologue and first beginning chapters, but then around 18-25% mark, some parts made me feel as if I was missing something which lead to me feeling disconnected for the entire first 30% of the book. This may be a novel where things are fully revealed as time goes on, but me not connecting strong enough with the characters in the 1/3rd of the book made it difficult for me to be invested in the outcome. I was definitely interested in the story but not invested — especially character wise. I have read ninth house so I was super excited to read this one as well. It took me a bit to chomp through that one (I assumed bc it was an adult dark academia fantasy) and I hoped that immortal dark being YA would be more my speed.

Since Kidan seems to be a morally grey main character, this could add to why it’s hard to connect. Yes, we must find her sister — but she is also a murder. I liked hearing about the tapes (?) and I wish that continued a little more by this point to show more of June. To show more of their true relationship as sisters and maybe even more stakes to finding the truth about June’s disappearance. We know Kidan had to find her sister, but why? Yes it’s her sister but what else? What was their relationship truly like? How did we get to this point? I think touching on that aspect *more* in the first 3rd, would then let me feel the true stakes of not finding the truth of her sister would be. Learning about the university seemed choppy for me. I yearned for more character development and understanding their why behind their actions. Other than that, I enjoyed the prose throughout— it was just missing some elements that truly connected me to keep me going. Definitely give the reader something in the first 25-30% that grabs them and don’t let go. Connect the reader to the characters first, and then everything after that will have more intensity & meaning.

I would consider this a medium/slow burn. My assumption is the pay off will come towards the end. I may give this another shot through ebook/physical copy to see if that enhances my understanding and experience. I have listened to and enjoyed other audiobooks in the past and I loved the narration but some formats work better than others depending on the book as well.


I would say for other readers out there, definitely read the reviews of those who made it to 100% and see what their take on it is. As always, if you are the tiniest bit interested in reading this novel PLEASE DO!! 🫶🏾

Thank you NetGalley, Tigest Girma, and Hatchette Audio for allowing me to listen to the ARC and providing my genuine feedback.




Updated review on physical book:
Wow.

This book is something else!


🩸What I really enjoyed —
I loved how moody and dark the main characters were. Absolutely set the vibe for the fall/halloween vibes I was looking for.
These characters are dark and not innocent. I loved it! Get me into the “villain era”.

I have highlighted sooo many quotes. I loved how we do see a peek of something different with Kidan as the story goes on and there are parts of her and Sesunyos’ relationship that I did enjoy. Oh and the TENSION between these two are unmatched and made their story just that much better.

🔥what I didn’t like/what’s missing? —
I felt as if this was a chaotic, tornado storm where I have been gripped, dragged, thrown, and then TOLD what was going on in the book. Meaning, I wasn’t being LEAD anywhere. It feels as if since Kidan doesn’t consider anything and seems impulsive, that’s why the story itself feels that way and choppy. It often feels like we are a ragdoll thrown around by a dog or throw on the dryer.

BUT it feels intentional. Kidan is spiraling and that’s probably why we feel the same as we read the book.


The ending SHOOK me. I had to shut my kindle and process wtf just happened and what will happen in the next novel.

I hope we get more character development w/Kidan and less spiraling. I hope we get lead thru a beautiful, challenging, and complex story next.

It was so hard to give this novel a rating. I will settle on a 4 (4.25 on Storygraph — I see the intentionality of the flaws but still impacted the reading experience that kept it from 5 star personally)

Thank you to Netgalley and Hachette Audio for the digital audio galley in exchange for my honest review.

Immortal Dark brings a new light to vampiric retellings, and it does enemies to lovers in one of the best ways I’ve ever seen.

I loved the main character, and the narrator did an amazing job bringing her to life.

Until the 30% mark I found it really slow, and it was a trudge to get there, but after that it was a whirlwind.

Immortal Dark - Tigest Girma

To save her home, she has to go into the heart of the beast and learn all she can… It’s the only way she can find out what happened to her sister.

Dark academia at its finest!! Kidan is the last survivor of her family line but her family has left their ancestral home to a vampire. The same vampire she is sure killed her sister.

I enjoyed the vampires but Kidan was annoying at times. I loved the forced proximity but I could really feel much sympathy for Kidan for most of the book and I am also a massive hater of made up names in fantasy books. It is so off putting! Call them Bob and Jane and call it a day.

The story had a lot going on and it was pretty well paced for a fantasy. I need more vampire lore, the story was fascinating but the characters that weren't vampires… UGH… I would eat all those people just so they wouldn’t talk anymore. I'm not sure if this was done on purpose or I’m too old to appreciate young adults but UGH UGH UGH. So whiney. I have a lot of questions though and I will see what book 2 brings.

4 stars

Thank you to the publisher, Hachette Audio | Little, Brown Young Readers for this early audiobook to review. All thoughts are my own.

5/5 stars!

Tigest Girma is going to be HUGE. That's the only way I can accurately sum up how blown away I was with this story from the very start. But just as importantly, the narrator was PHENOMENAL. I was absolutely sucked in and even the vocal changes between characters were believable and seamless. This story was much more fast paced than I anticipated it being, and I honestly couldn't stop listening. I listened quite literally any chance in my day that I could get, and I've gotta say this is going to be the most painful wait for a sequel that I've experience in a while. I loved the way Tigest writes, and the way quite literally all of her characters were TRULY morally grey/actually evil. And the basis/studies within the school were actually thought provoking, and the prose was absolutely beautiful. There were so many twists and I won't lie, I yelled "WTF?!?" maybe a few too many times out loud. LOL

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was one of my most anticipated releases of the year and it was good. I had a good time. The vampire lore was interesting and I am a sucker for dark academia. The romance within this book kind of gave off Klaus Mikaelson vibes which I ADORED.

The reason I didn't rate it higher was because the pacing was off to me and I struggled sometimes to stay connected to the story. Lastly, Kidan started to irritate me as the book went on so it was hard to truly enjoy everything in this book.

I still think its going to be a very popular book for others!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️

🖤Dark Academia
🧛🏻Vampires
🖤Forced Proximity
🧛🏻Enemies to Lovers
🖤”Magical” House


I really enjoyed this book. The enemies to lovers was chef’s kiss. The cool concept of the story was brilliant. I will definitely be reading the next one, so many secrets were revealed. I love when books have a mystery element to them. I love that you could never tell if you should trust either of the main characters. This takes place in an academic setting. The world building was very good!

I had an ALC )audiobook) for this one and the narrator was amazing. I would definitely listen to other books by them. Highly recommend this book if you love, vampires, dark academia, and enemies lovers.

I don’t understand why these publishing companies do this. The one time I read the synopsis, the whole literal story is in it. Can y’all not give us less information? lol I might be the only one who doesn’t like it, but it annoys me all the time.

I think I start all vampire book reviews like this…. I am not a fan of them, but when they’re Black I’m going to read it every time. And this one was no different. I had to give it a shot and I’m glad I did. There was a whole bunch of crazy in this one. The characters were really what made it for me. I hate saying this, but Kidan was crazy. From the fangs, to the blaming, to just everything, she had tunnel vision. And I’m still confused on the ending. I don’t want to say anything, but just know I had to listen to it like 4 times. She was mad but she wasn’t, but she was. Everybody kept lying. Literally no one told the truth in that whole book lol

The rest of the book was all about the school. Though I do wish she told us more about what it looked like, I assumed it was a basic school. But like, shouldn’t it be some crazy weird thing because there were vampires and magic? It just seemed so plain. But like the lessons and stuff were crazy. I wanted to know more about their assignments and the things they were doing. Idk for this to be about the college, it was more about that house and the vampire.

The synopsis was way too on top of the actual book. It was too close. Maybe I’ve just been reading too much, but from just the synopsis I was able to guess what was happening very early on. I just had an hunch and ran with it. And lo and behold, it was correct. Was it because I read too much? Or was it because it was just easy to call from the synopsis? Also, I just knew to keep my guard up for a huge reveal at the end and there is. The problem is, there’s like 3 of them, so you never know when the things are done happening lol

The vampires of this were pretty cool. We only get to see glimpses of their lore, like their eyes turn colors, but I think I was more interested in the house and the house’s lore. And we don’t get that much information about it. We just find out things as Kidan finds them out. There’s a lot of hidden things that are sunk in this book. And that was one thing I really liked about this. But because of that, this book was way too long lol I thought it definitely could have been edited down. There was no reason this should have been 17 hours.

I was kinda scared to write this review because I didn’t give it all the stars like everyone else. But at least I was honest. I liked this, but there were somethings that needed to be changed. I can’t wait to see how the rest of the series will go.

I saw Black vampires plus this gorgeous cover and clicked request without looking any further and honestly I probably should have. I think this was a really solid debut, and I've seen so many rave reviews so I still recommend you give this a shot if it sounds like it would be interesting for you; however, I struggled to get through it.

Immortal Dark features an angry, orphaned heiress who doesn't really want to live but she's searching for her missing sister, which leads to an elite university where she has to live with the vampire she thinks stole her sister. While this is sold as a young adult book, I think it could easily have been sold as adult. Tigest Girma really throws the reader into the world without much handholding and the plot and pacing felt more meandering than I've come to expect from a young adult book.

Where I struggled I think was in caring about Kidan. She's angry and passively suicidal but she felt pretty bland beyond that even though she felt liked the character that was most fleshed out. I'm not a reader that needs to connect to characters to enjoy the book but I need to connect to something and I also couldn't buy into the world and magic created here. The ideas were solid but the execution didn't fully come together in a way that made me care until the second half of the story but by then it was climbing an uphill battle to get me to like the book.

I didn't hate it, but I was pretty bored for the majority of the book. Maybe I just need to accept that "dark academia" isn't for me.

Enemies to lovers and I mean that in every sense of the words. There was hatred between to the two love interests and it was so satisfying to see them finally break down and have a romantic connection.
This book for sure took a unique take on vampires that was intriguing and engaging. I found myself interested throughout this book making it a solid read in my book.
I’d like to thank NetGalley for an audio copy of this book. The narrator was perfection in bringing this tale of betrayal, darkness and blood to life.

Immortal Dark follows Kidan as she searches for her sister, June, who has gone missing. Kidan thinks that June was taken by vampires and is invited to Uxlay, a vampire/human university that their parents were involved with after the death of her aunt. Her family has been influential in the university for some time. She hopes to get information there, but finds out she will have to be close to the person she thinks is responsible for her sister's disappearance. Things continue on as she realizes that she really has no idea what is happening around her.

I struggled a bit with the audio, and when trying to figure out why, I did a keyword search in an ebook. The main character's name is said over 1,800 times in a little over 400 pages. That was frequent enough for me to notice and be distracting for me, but that might not bother others. This might also be less distracting in print.

Thanks to Hachette Audio | Little, Brown Young Readers, and NetGalley for an alc of this book for an honest review.

In this vampire lore meets dark academic story, Kidan is searching for her sister and unraveling the secrets of her family's past. She works to build a circle of acquaintances to help her and can't help but court trouble throughout.

The enemies to lovers piece didn't work for me; it was too quick and too easy of a transition to want to root for the two. I also struggled a bit with feeling that I had missed a first book, given the references made to pre-story events that were passed off as given facts.

The vampire lore was a more interesting take than I expected, and I was drawn to the secondary characters far more than our MCs.

Narration listened to a 2.5x speed. Sounded great and was still easy to follow.

Overall: 3 stars (I liked it)

**Thank you to NetGalley & Hachette Audio | Little, Brown Young Readers for the free ALC. All opinions expressed are my own.**

I liked this one a lot! It is the perfect gothic fantasy for fall. I loved the atmosphere. I can see the cruel prince comparisons, but i really wanted it to last for more. They weren't together enough or enemies for long enough. The beginning really dragged for me, but once we got to halfway, I enjoyed the plot more. The mystery of her sister just, in the beginning, was too repetitive for my liking. I think the first half was a 3 star, the second half a 4, so 3.5?

I think it will take a few read throughs for me to fully appreciate and understand the intricacies of the complex plot in this story. I feel like I don’t fully appreciate it yet with one read. At this point I love the dark academia, the dynamic between dranaics (vampires) and actis (specific families that feed dranaics) and Susenyos (MMC; arrogant vampire who loves himself). I’m iffy on Kidan, the FMC. She’s so prejudiced that I had a hard time caring about her, but I wanted to because I understood why she acted the way she did. Blind prejudice bothered me far more than murder, and I’m not sure how to justify that. She’s cruel and hypocritical for the sake of her cause. I started to change my perspective; it helped. For the first 75% I see Kidan as a villain and Susenyos as her guide of sorts. When Kidan begins to adjust her viewpoint re: dranaics/her peers, who the reader views as the villain changes. Good guys and bad guys aren’t black and white in this world, and it’s hard to know what to think as you wade through it. I’ll be rethinking about parts of this book for a while.

The audiobook was very captivating. It’s a single narrator, and for such a complex, atmospheric story, they did an amazing job. I really enjoyed listening to this performance.

I’m not sure if eyeball reading or listening to this story is better. It’s going to tingle your brain either way. I say pick what feels best for you.

Thank you to NetGalley, Tigest Girma, and Hachette audio for this audiobook ARC.

A great debut from Tigest Girma! Our story follows Kidan Adane—a girl who will stop at nothing to find her sister, who she believes was stolen from her in the night by a vampire—in particular, the vampire bound to her family, Susenyos Sagad. The path to finding her sister leads Kidan back to the secret society of Uxlay: a society where vampires live alongside human families and power is prized above all. To reclaim her ancestral home, she must attend the elite Uxlay University and pass a cutthroat course of study if she hopes to win back her house and defeat Susenyos. But her return to Uxlay brings more questions than answers, forcing Kidan to open up her circle of one to form tenuous alliances with her classmates, and maybe even Susenyos himself, if she wants to find the truth.

❤️ What I loved: The unique vampire lore in this book was also a standout of anything I’ve read this year! In addition, the plot of this book was full of great twists and turns, and the story was full of very morally grey characters and situations that kept things surprising. While the romance here was largely not my favorite, some exceptionally delicious moments of tension kept me hooked and wanting more! I listened to the audiobook for this one, and the narration was done well.
💔 What I didn’t love: I struggled a bit with this one, and I’m not quite sure if it was the pacing that threw me off, some lingering questions about the worldbuilding, or a lack of connection with the characters that made me feel a little disconnected at times from the story.

I’d recommend this book for fans of a real enemies-to-romance story, those who love morally grey characters, and people looking for a unique vampire story. I wasn’t sure where I was going to land with this one, but by the end, I was left looking forward to continuing in the next book!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 (3.5-4)

Acknowledgments & Disclaimers ✨ Thank you to NetGalley, Tigest Girma, and Hachette Audio/Little Brown Young Readers, for providing an ARC and the opportunity to share an honest review of this book. ✨ All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. ✨ My reviews and ratings strive to evaluate books within their own age-demographic and genre.

From the very beginning it felt like I was reading the second book of a series rather than the first book. There was just to much of everything and it still felt like nothing.

This book made me fall in love with vampire stories all over again. I didn't think it would happen but now I feel like I need to reread this or find something EXACTLY like it just to feel the satisfaction it brought me. J'adore!