A Lesson in Vengeance has been on my wish list, an anticipated read for a while now. I am a huge fan of dark academia and the whole aesthetic. This book specifically is a wonderful sapphic dark academia that is a fantastic story from the author, I feel it is cleverly written and compelling.

This book did not disappoint. I loved the constant undercurrent feelings of grief and guilt, which added to the gothic vibes perfectly, and made the main character relatable. It follows Felicity Morrow, a young woman who returns to her boarding school after being away due to a horrific accident that left her girlfriend dead. Felicity finds herself plagued by guilt and haunted by the ghost of Alex, her ex girlfriend and the five witches that died under suspicious circumstances. I enjoyed how the novel led you to question whether what Felicity was experiencing was a result of her mental health or a more darker situation.

If you’re a fan of twisty dark academia, LGBTQ+ rep and mental health representation in your stories then I would definitely recommend this to you.

- Dark academia
- LGBTQ rep
- Mental health rep

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for my EArc copy of Lessons In Vengence.

Dark academia is a genre I would love to love, but I just don't seem to be able to fully get into it and this is the third book of this genre I have tried. I really liked the premise of this book and have had book friends of similar preferences say that they really enjoyed this book, so I just feel it was not for me unfortunately.

I will give the book a 3 star rating, as I know I didn't enjoy it due to personal preference of genre and it wasn't to do with the writing itself.

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for allowing me to read an eARC of this story!

2.5 stars

I have to admit that sadly, this book turned out to be quite a disappointment for me. I had been anticipating this release for months, so I was incredibly excited when I got approved to read it ahead of its release. However, it simply fell flat for me.

Let's start with the positives: I loved the concept and the writing style did, for the most part, really appeal to me. The chemistry between the main character and the love interest was definitely tangible for me and made their relationship very believable.

My main issue with this story is that, from my perspective, it fell into the exact trap it was trying to comment on. Maybe my interpretation of the story and that of the author simply differ, and that's completely okay, but the resolution didn't feel grand or eye-opening to me, but simply contrived and disappointing. I really wish that this book would have gone in a different direction, that could have easily made it a four star read, but as things are, the ending really let me down and diminished my enjoyment of the story.

Nevertheless, I don't think I'd go as far as to not recommend this book - it didn't work out for me, but I think other readers might find themselves enjoying this story.

Felicity Morrow returns to Dalloway School and Godwin House to finish her studies after a period of absence due to mental health issues after she witnessed her girlfriend Alex’s death. The school has dark past, with witchcraft believed to be responsible for the historic deaths of five students. Ostracised on her return, Felicity eventually forms new friendships, most notably with Ellis Hale, a prodigy and published novelist who is at Dalloway to work on her next novel. Ellis is investigating the Dalloway five and attempting to debunk the idea that witchcraft was involved in their deaths. The residents of Godwin House form a secret society around Ellis and soon events take a dark turn as they dabble in witchcraft.
A Lesson in Vengeance is an atmospheric, dark read, which will keep you on the edge of your seat right up to its conclusion. Events are narrated from Felicity’s perspective, whose flawed perception and at times tenuous hold on reality contribute to the dark tone of this novel. If you love dark academia and a gothic feel, I’d recommend that you pick up this page-turner!
Thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books for giving me the opportunity to read an electronic copy of this book.

Felicity Morrow returns to Dalloway School after a period of time away recovering from the death of her girlfriend Alex, another Dalloway student. On her return she forms new friendships, most notably with Ellis Hale, a prodigy novelist looking to work on her latest novel.

What stood out to me most about this book was the atmosphere. The setting worked so well with the gothic, dark academia vibes and I really appreciated all the literary references peppered throughout.

Felicity was a fantastic unreliable narrator. One of my favourite things about an unreliable narrator is that nothing is out of bounds and you never know what to expect and this was certainly delivered in A Lesson In Vengence. Felicity’s tendency to obsess over certain aspects of her life and the people around her really added to the uncomfortable atmosphere and building tension.

There were gentle moments to the story too which balanced out some of the darker parts. Overall a page-turning, unsettling thriller that I really enjoyed.

Thanks to Titan Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I ended up DNFing this book pretty swiftly -- it was clear pretty quickly that dark academia just isn't the genre for me, despite trying to get into it several times.

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee review 🥰 I loved this!

I went into this thinking it was dark academic but light on the magic side. I was right in a good way. For the academia side, there are book upon books, lots of tea, blankets, boarding school, library, special collection section of a library, and so much more. For the light magic there is the occult scene, tarot, dead witches with ties to the Salem witch trials, occult book collection at the library, and lots more. For the dark stuff it gets moody weather wise but also mental wise. This books plays a trick on you, or it did with me. I though it would go in one direction and it went in another. And I loved it! I loved how it played with the “is it real or is it in my head” so it thing. I loved how it ended and how it got to that point. I loved how it started at the end of a mystery that was also the beginning of another. I loved the setting and the moody weather with a house without heating (where are the building regs???). I loved the sapphic storyline too. I loved so many part of this book. Even how the title of the book came around in the story. This is not your average sapphic dark academia book. It questions mentality, and what is and isn’t real no matter how much we want it.

For me this is a strong 4 - 4.5 ⭐️ I’m interested to see what else the author come up with.

Felicity is back at the elite Dalloway School, living in Godwin House which is the most elite house on the grounds (with the darkest history) almost a year to the day after her best friend/lover Alex died in front of her in such a horrific way. Felicity is convinced she’ll leave her witchcraft behind after what happened with Alex, but she finds that impossible to do after a run in with an author, Ellis. Ellis wants to write about the Dalloway Five and the mysterious deaths that surrounded them and Ellis needs Felicity’s knowledge of the school and Alex’s death. What happens next is Felicity and Ellis always trying to stay one step ahead of the other in order to discover the truth about the Dalloway Five.

The pacing of this one was on the slow side but it came with a lot of twists in the story to keep you reading because you wanted some of the mysteries to be solved so you can understand the plot and characters better. I’m still not 100% sure what the plot is in this book, but I found it to be an enjoyable read all the same! Want a cute book involving elite schools and witches and LGBTQ rep? Give this book a read!

Thank you Titan for sending me a copy in exchange for my review.

I'd only recently heard of the term dark academia, having stumbled across a video essay that explained this fairly new,and popular, genre. As far as I was aware, I'd not actually read any books that were expressly described as being dark academia; though there are definitely a few that skirt close to it. But A Lesson in Vengeance is a book that as soon as I heard about it people were throwing that phrase around; and as such I was really looking forward to finally experiencing this popular genre.

A Lesson in Vengeance begins by introducing us to Felicity Morrow, a young woman who has returned to college following a long break the previous year for so far unspecified reasons. We get hints that it was something bad that happened to her, but not much else at this point. Felicity attends the Dalloway School, and lives in the centuries old Godwin house; a small building dating back to the 1700's that played home to five young women who were accused of being witches, and who died in strange and tragic circumstances. The Dalloway Five.

Expecting to be the only person at Godwin house this early, Felicity is surprised to find another student there, Ellis Haley. Ellis is in her first year at Dalloway, and is a world famous author at only seventeen. Whilst Felicity initially takes a dislike to her, and the way the other girls at Godwin house flock around her, the two of them begin to grow close. Eventually, Ellis asks Felicity for hep writing her next novel, a story about the Dalloway Five. The two of them begin to plan out how someone could have committed these historic murders, making it look like the work of magic. But Felicity begins to unlock suppressed memories of the tragic events that took place the previous year, and begins to think that she may be quite literally haunted by the ghosts of what happened.

A Lesson in Vengeance is a mystery thriller book, with some possible supernatural elements thrown in to have the reader question if something more than ordinary might be going on. You'll spend a lot of time reading this book learning small snippets of information about Felicity's past, trying to piece together what happened to her and her girlfriend, Alex; as well as watching as Felicity and Ellis grow close in the present.

There feels like there's a lot of balls up in the air when reading this book, a lot of things to keep track of and to watch out for as you juggle small clues, vague hints, and outright disinformation. Because of this, I often found it hard to fully invest in what was happening. There were more and a few times where we'd be given a piece of information as fact, and then several pages later we'd be told it was an outright lie. I suspect that this was done both for dramatic effect, and possibly to show the mental health issues that Felicity was dealing with; but I would sometimes feel like a bit of a cheat to me. For example, I don't know what we gained from Felicity giving us a completely fabricated version of events, which was immediately proven to be false. I don't know why we were made to believe something was real before it was quickly revealed to be fake, other than to perhaps make us not believe anything that Felicity was seeing.

If this was, in fact, an attempt to have the reader begin to doubt the sincerity of the narrator, I didn't like this method. It's not someone starting to question if maybe they imagined seeing a ghost, or questioning if maybe their recollection could be slightly off; this was the narrator giving us an openly false narrative that was nothing like reality, which then immediately made me doubt anything that had come before it. I wasn't jut questioning if what was happening now was false, but if anything in the entire book was even real; and this effected how I thought about what I'd already read in a negative way. It's difficult to write about mental health, and certain issues are going to be harder to convey, but I just found that Felicity creating this entirely different version of events made her completely untrustworthy, and broke some of my enjoyment of the book.

The other main protagonist for the book, and only other real character, is Ellis. Ellis is seventeen, a published author who has received a Pulitzer, has been on the cover of Time Magazine, and has more wild stories than someone three times her age. And there's my biggest issue with her right off the bat. Ellis is a character who cannot, should not, be seventeen. I know it might not sound very generous of me, but her level of achievement, her fame and fortune and skill at just seventeen feel completely and utterly unbelievable. These feelings were only compound by the way she acted. She spends long periods locked in her room writing, but when she comes out she's introducing girls older than her to different whiskey drinks, she'd driving around to old antique shops, and she's staring off into the distance with a look of angst on her face. She's a thirty-five-year-old trapped in a teenage body. The fact that we also get this ridiculous horror story like backstory for her doesn't help either, as her entire character began to feel like walking tropes rather than a real human being.

This was something that I found with all of the characters if I'm being honest, they all came across like people twice their age, and none of them felt like teens at all. I know some people complain about how immature protagonists in YA books are because they're kids, but if these characters were stated to be in their thirties but nothing else was changed it wouldn't feel out of place at all. Perhaps its just that each and every one of them was pretentious, attending this old college, dressing in tweeds and plaids that seem to have come off a dark academia mood board, talking about how difficult their privileged lives are, discussing old classics like they should shape the way people view the world. Yes, it might be ticking all the boxes for fans of dark academia, but it resulted in teens who felt like they were trying too hard to be adults, and came across as very false.

In addition to Ellis being this super special 'greatest writer of her generation' at seventeen we had a similar thing with Alex, Felicity's ex. Alex, who I believe was also seventeen at the time of her death, was an Olympic athlete who'd climbed Everest twice already and was the second youngest person in the world to do so. Whilst I know that there are young Olympians, and that the youngest person to climb Everest was thirteen, this just felt like another example of the main characters needing to be super special wonder people. I don't know how she does it, but Felicity seems to only attract the greatest people of her age. Perhaps this is another reason why everyone in this book feels so rich and privileged that I couldn't really connect with them.

Outside of Felicity and Ellis, and talk about Alex, there aren't really any real characters in the book. There are three other housemates that live in Godwin, but I couldn't tell you their names let alone what they're like as they're so forgettable. These other three only seem to appear when the plot needs them to, and do the barest minimum before leaving again. The book could have cut half the scenes they were in and you wouldn't really notice their absence as they bring nothing to the table.

I really wanted to like A Lesson in Vengeance, I wanted to get invested in this story and the characters, but I found so little of either actually in the pages. What was there felt too disconnected, too heavily reliant on exaggerated tropes and 'vibes' to get by, and often came across more like a pastiche. Perhaps I'm simply the wrong audience for this, I'm sure there will be people who will lap up the dark academia theme, who will dig the characters and love the romance and mystery; but I'm not one of them.

A Lesson in Vengeance is a twisted story, which will probably warrant a reread to appreciate fully.
Set in the Dalloway School, a remote academic establishment mired in rumour and stories of witchcraft. None of the staff talk of these rumours, but the girls do. Secret societies devoted to spells and the study of the dark arts thought to be responsible for the death of five students of Godwin House abound, and they draw the attention of students such as Felicity Morrow, our narrator.
Felicity was present on the night her girlfriend, Alex, disappeared and has now returned to the school to complete her studies. Certainly emotionally vulnerable, Felicity has a record of erratic behaviour and her conduct gives cause for concern. She is convinced she is haunted by the spirit of her ex-girlfriend, and we watch as strange events occur.
This year sees the arrival of new girl Ellis Haley, a published writer, and a character very keen to learn more of the hidden past of the school. She befriends Felicity in an attempt, she says, to debunk the older girl’s belief in magic and witches. But it’s clear that Ellis has other ideas in mind.
Initially rather slow, I found myself intrigued by the school and its depiction while also feeling rather disassociated from events. As the story develops and we start to see more of Ellis in action I found myself quite gripped. The relationship between Ellis and Felicity felt like something from Donna Tartt herself, and as events built to their climax I could not quite get my head around exactly which character I disliked more. To make you like and hate a character in equal measure is quite something, and Lee certainly toys with our perception of the two leads. My main issue with this - and the only reason I didn’t award 5 stars - was the sense of remove I felt at the beginning and the sense of the secondary characters/school environment being rather underdeveloped.
Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this in advance of publication, and this is certainly one I’ll bookmark for a re-read at some point.

Dalloway School for Girls is home to protegies, literature enthusiasts and, when you look into the shadows, the occult. It has a history bathed in witches and blood. Last year, a girl fell from a cliff and drowned, the body never recovered. Now, her best friend Felicity is back after a psychotic episode and a famous young writer, Ellis, is in the same dorm. Ellis lures her back into the history that contributed to last years' tradgedy and Felicity's grasp on what is real is thinning. When Ellis asks her for help with her newest book, Felicity can't say no.
This book was gripping. The writing was atmospheric, it transported me right to Dolloway and its dark academia, antique campus. The feel was very reminiscent of wuthering heights or Dracula. The plot was fast paced and twisty. Because Felicity's grasp on reality is thin and thinning, it never really becomes clear in which direction the plot is going until it does. Felicity is the perfect unreliable narrator. I also really enjoyed the portrayal of mental illness, especially one so stigmatised. Felicity gets worse, then she gets better, then there's a trigger and she gets worse again. It's not senseless or violent, it's raw and illogically logical. Bits of truth were revealed slowly, allowing us to puzzle together our own understanding. First, that Felicity is unreliable, then more and more of what actually happened before the story. The main characters and their relationship were compelling, Ellis especially. Felicity's fascination with her and the unhealthy dynamic that beginns to develop is written beautifully.
Some parts of the story, in particular the five witches in the school's history and the big reveal at the end of the story arc about Alex, did fall a little flat. Here, the story would have profited from a higher page count, allowing Ellis and Felicity more actual information about the witches' death and Alex more than half a sentence to resolve her mystery. These were particularly dissapointing because so much of the social media presence of this book focuses on its 'witchiness', when it really doesn't take up much of the book at all. The witchiness is a background, not the actual object of the book. This book is a gothic thriller that centers around mental illness, but not in the stereotypical 'people with psychosis are evil' way.
If you want a sapphic, gothic thrilleresque dark academia novel, then this is the right book for you. If you're looking for a witchy book, it probably isn't.

I ENJOYED…
☂️
One of the best things about A Lesson in Vengeance, and what captivated me right from the very beginning, as well, is the setting and the entire atmosphere the author manages to create. The story is set at Dalloway School, a private institution haunted by a tragic past with witchcraft and mysterious deaths and you can feel it all around. Tree branches scraping at the windows, tarot cards revealing strange fates, reading in tea leaves and reading books by candle light, walking on school grounds, in the darkness and in the snow, cristals and ouija boards… The author gives life to a chilling, slightly creepy, at times, really mysterious and yet captivating atmosphere. Honestly, that’s what caught me right from the start and until the very end of the book.
The story is told from Felicity’s POV, a senior at the school, coming back after a couple of really dark months, following the mysterious death of her girlfriend on school grounds. She’s dealing with psychotis depression and she’s one of the most unreliable, strange narrators I ever encountered in my life. Yet, I followed her journey attentively, so compelled by who she was, who she could really be, what she’d done and whether or not everything was, well, real, or not real, as well.
A Lesson in Vengeance is definitely a slow burning kind of story, where the suspense builds up slowly, but surely. You feel the mystery, you feel the darkness blooming slowly and, while this might bother some readers, I personally really appreciated it and it made me feel even more compelled to read on and on.
If I had to describe the relationships in this book with a word, it would probably be: intense. While A Lesson in Vengeance has some interesting side characters, Ellis definitely stole the show and her relationship with Felicity took the book to a whole other level. Ellis is such an intense character, a bit of a puzzle piece you don’t know where to fit, a bit of a mystery you’re not sure you want to figure out. There’s something so captivating about the way Felicity slowly gets to know her, as their lifes get tangled up with the mysteries of the school and of Felicity’s past.

I HAD A HARD TIME WITH…
☂️
Truly a personal point of view here, but this book has A LOT of triggers, something that made me feel a bit unsettled, at times, I’ll admit it! They’re all listed above if you need them and please, please take care.
This is not something I really had a hard time with, but I was a bit surprised by the witchcraft presence in the story. From the synopsis, I kind of expected more of the story and of the focus to be on the witchcraft art itself and…well, while it was present, it wasn’t as present as I imagined it to be. No spoilers here!

OVERALL
☂️
Atmospheric and compelling right from the start, A Lesson in Vengeance will appeal to all fans of dark academia and slow suspense. I really enjoyed it this and definitely recommend it!

A Lesson in Vengeance is the whisper in the dark, the slight chill in your bones that you cannot get away from and the sense of something horrible lurking just out of sight. Simply put, this is a book that lends itself to obsession and will make room for itself in both your shelf and your heart.

Every so often, a book comes along that just takes control of your very mind, heart and soul. A Lesson in Vengeance is one of those books. It just made an indelible mark on my heart as I fell deeper and deeper into its dark labyrinthine mystery.

This is my first book from Lee, but now I need to devour the rest of their work. I really, really loved their writing style. It just was delectably written so gorgeously evocative and easy to lose yourself in. I actually rationed myself to a certain amount of pages per day as I just wanted to savour every last page. The book was just permeated by this dark, witchy and brooding atmosphere that seeped through the pages and captivated my mind. I loved the focus on literary influences and the unrelenting pursuit of success at any cost. This is the beating heart of Dark Academia, with the rotting sense of corruption and evil at the centre of these institutions. It’s a testament to the unrelenting academic rivalry and competition fostered by these driven, claustrophobic settings. This is a rivalry that burns bright, but also has embers of mutual respect and something more. It is an intense, forceful and cutting deep-dive into one twisted, symbiotic relationship between two people forced to the boundaries of society.

From the start, Lee drops these little hints and whispers at the darkness of what has happened before. This is a book that does not hold back in its intensity and emotional depth. It really goes there at times, forcing you to question your own reading experiences and what is being presented to you. There’s this consummate sense of something sinister slithering between the pages. It truly is like lightning in a bottle. Something dark is always bubbling beneath the surface, with traumatic flashbacks and memories disrupting the linear narrative. I really enjoyed the ambiguity about the supernatural, with flashes of something unexplainable but this is also complicated by narrative tendencies towards the deceitful and manipulative. Lee does not allow for any easy answers, instead leaving you with a tangled knot of human complexity and emotions.

A Lesson in Vengeance is electric and all-consuming. Lee has crafted this intimate tale that utterly consumes you and ensures that you will leave changed irrevocably by what you have read. This is just stunning in every single way.

4.25 stars.

A mysterious, twisted, dark academia style novel. It's predominantly a mystery thriller type based in a boarding school, about young women and their search to recreate a tragedy from centuries ago. There were multiple twists throughout and I really enjoyed the ending plus the influence that magic and witches had in the tale.

If I had known before requesting this book that the author sends people after reviewers who have anything critical to say about the book, I would have not requested this.

For fans of If We Were Villains, A LESSON IN VENGEANCE is the lesbian dark academia book you've been waiting for. The story is set at an elite and atmospheric boarding school populated by a litany of fiercely intelligent and privileged teenagers. An adoration of literature seeps into the pages, imbuing the prose with a lyrical and decadent cadence. So many sentences deserve to be rolled around in your mouth like a fine wine and appreciated for their depth and flavour.

The main character is Felicity who is retaking her final year after the death of her girlfriend in mysterious circumstances. An unreliable narrator, secrets surround Felicity, shadowing events and twisting the reader's thoughts. When she meets literary genius and prodigy Ellis, Felicity is forced to confront her past and soon finds herself entangled in a dangerous game of magic and murder. This is a story to read in Autumn with bad weather crashing outside the house and a hot drink in hand. Highly recommended.

There are a few things you can always tempt me with. An all girls boarding school is a good start already. If you add a touch of secret society to it it gets better. If you add a mystery, both in the past and in the present, to it it becomes almost impossible to not read the book. I was therefore quite happy when Titan Books approved my Netgalley request to get a review copy of this book. If they hadn't asked me to hold my review until February I would have read the book straight away.

Everything about this book worked for me. I was only gonna make a start yesterday, a few chapters, just to get me going. At the end of the day I had passed the halfway point of the book, because it was simply impossible to put the book down. And that's mostly because the atmosphere in this book is simply amazing. I could feel the cold winter air. I could almost touch the snow. I could smell the blood and the smoke. I could hear the whispering of the ghosts.

I could also really understand what Felicity is going through. Not because I've been through something similar myself, luckily, but because Lee managed to describe her struggles, her fear, her panic, her love and all her other emotions so incredibly well. Although there are people trying to make her believe that she is going insane, as a reader I truly felt how serious this all was, how real everything was to her, how scared she was.

Since the book stays vague for a long time on whether or not everything that's going on is supernatural the story is also very thrilling and exciting. Although just before the half way point I had an inkling what might be going on and I wasn't that far off. Not that I mind. It means that Lee managed to build up the story perfectly. She left clues and hints, she made sure that things didn't simply come out of nowhere, she gave every scene and wink and smile a purpose.

I'm addicted and I can't wait to check out her other books!

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee was one of my most highly anticipated novels of the year, but while I thoroughly enjoyed it in the end, I had mixed feelings as I was reading. But having finished the book, it really was fantastic!

What I want to start off saying is that this isn't fantasy or horror, or an amalgamation of the two. I came for the witches and the ghosts and the mysterious historic deaths, when they're actually not the real focus of the story at all. They play a part, but they're not what this story is about. It's about obsession, ambition, mental illness, and toxic relationships. This is contemporary, and it's a thriller. The description above compares A Lesson in Vengeance with The Craft, which just isn't right at all. What I'm about to say next kind of crosses into spoiler territory, so I'm putting it under a spoiler tags. But you should know that what I discuss is that there's something I think readers should know before they even start the story. In my opinion, you should read the below, but I leave the choice up to you.

IN PUBLIC REVIEWS SPOILER TAGS/BUTTON STARTS HERE.

This story wouldn't be the story it is if Felicity didn't have a mental illness. It simply wouldn't exist. And I feel very strongly that stories about mental illness should clearly say so in the blurb/description. The way this story is told, it took the majority of the book to figure out whether this book <i>was</i> about witches and ghosts or about mental health. I'm all for unreliable narrators, but I'm generally not a fan of asking myself, "Is this real or is this delusion?" without knowing prior if the character has delusions or not. I'm not against stories that explore mental illness like this, where the character with a mental illness is thinking or seeing things that aren't real, but I believe we should know going into the story. I would prefer the fact that Felicity has psychotic depression was in the blurb.

SPOILER ENDS.

Saying all that, I did really enjoy it! The history of the Dalloway Five and Dalloway School's occult past, though secondary, was really fascinating, and I can completely understand Felicity's interest. A school where there may have been witches? I definitely would have wanted to attend! And with the school having a secret society coven, whose real purpose is to create connections between wealthy society people who can help each other out in the future, with it's rituals, you can understand Felicity's growing attraction to all things occult. She dabbles in real witchcraft (as opposed to the fantasy kind) herself, with crystals and candles, herbs and tarot cards, and while it's only a small part of the story, as someone who practices witchcraft, I appreciated it's inclusion, and the obvious research that went into it. But Felicity's attraction didn't last, as she believes it's related to her girlfriend Alex's death in an accident last year. Felicity and Alex performed a seance with a spirit board in order to contact the spirit of Margery Lemont, the daughter of the school's founder and the leader of the coven back then, who was buried alive. But Alex shut it down when Felicity started freaking out, and the seance wasn't closed properly. Felicity believes Margery Lemont's spirit wasn't released, and as such, killed Alex. That's the history. Felicity is now back at Dalloway School to retake her senior year, after her grief over Alex's death and her fear over Margery meant she needed to be hospitalised in a mental health facility. She is adamant she will turn her back on everything to do with magic and occult, because of what it does to her, but it won't seem to let her out of it's grasp. And Ellis Haley, Pulitzer prize winning teenage author, who has started at the school, is writing a new novel based on the Dalloway Five, and wants Felicity's help to because of her knowledge.

And so starts the relationship that is key to the story. Despite still grieving for Alex, and the guilt she feels over her death, Felicity is drawn to Ellis for reasons she can't quite explain. It goes beyond ordinary attraction. There is a pull she can't ignore, even though she doesn't even really like her at first. I didn't warm to Ellis at all. Initially, I thought she was standoffish, aloof and superior. As the story progressed, we see she can be really rude and selfish; she was the prodigy author and must be the center of attention, while also trying to appear above it all. Other students follow in her wake, starstruck by her celebrity, and Ellis uses this to her advantage, subtly controlling and influencing people. It's ordinary dick behaviour, but she's not like that all the time, not with Felicity. Even so, I felt there was something off about her. She made me feel uncomfortable, and the more I read, the more and more concerned I became. But as before, prior to Alex's death, Felicity gets in too deep, can't see the wood for the trees, and clings to Ellis like she's the only thing keeping her head above water.

While still not entirely sure what was going on, I became angry. There were some things I was certain about, and one was that Felicity and Ellis' relationship was toxic. Ellis' behaviour becomes increasingly questionable and shocking, and I was desperate for someone to see, someone to help. The tension grows, and it was just so uncomfortable to read. But it was like a car crash, I couldn't look away. I had to know what would happen next, where exactly this story would lead, though I couldn't imagine it would be anything good.

The last twenty percent of the book was truly epic, and hit me like a sucker punch. There was twist after twist, and the story got so much darker than I was ever expecting! It left my jaw on the floor, and I couldn't believe what I was reading. It was horrifying, but also incredible storytelling. When you look back over the story, you can see the subtle hints, the markers of the direction the story was heading in. It blew my mind, and I was left feeling completely unmoored, and wondering what the hell I just read. Honestly, it's the kind of story I know I will be thinking about for a very long time, that has left me with a deliciously unsettling feeling. While the stories themselves are nothing alike, I am reminded very much of how Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth left me feeling, awestruck and stunned, and the undeniable knowledge that I has just read something incredible. I am absolutely positive this is going to be a contender for one of my favourite reads of the year.

Dark Academia is rapidly becoming one of my favourite genres and A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee is an interesting addition to the genre. Set in the exclusive and historic Dalloway School in the Catskill Mountains, the book tells the story of Felicity Morrow who is returning to the school to repeat her senior year following the tragic death of her girlfriend, a fellow student at the school. Returning is certainly not easy, and coping with a new and unfamiliar group of girls was always going to be challenging ,especially when one of them is Ellis Haley , a writing prodigy who is already published at seventeen and is now keen to exploit the macabre history of the school for her newest novel. The history in question involves accusations of witchcraft and the mysterious deaths of five students years before. As a so called "method writer" Ellis soon involves Felicity in her schemes to re- enact the deaths as part of her research , pushing an already unstable young woman to breaking point and maybe even beyond.
The setting of the book was wonderful, there were some truly excellent descriptive passages that gave a vivid impression of the school itself and its setting. The main characters were interesting and I found the developing relationship between them intriguing, it was what kept me reading. However many of the other characters were barely distinguishable from one another and some seemed to have no purpose other than to add some diversity to the book. The other issue I had was the pacing, this is a really slow burn of a book with nothing much happening until about the 70% mark and the ending while dramatic was not surprising,
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Sadly I had to dnf this book at about 40%.
I just couldn't really get into it or care about anything or anyone.
I may try to read it again at some point as I did really like the sound of this book.
Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.