Gothic dark academia is without a doubt my favourite type of book, and The Whispering Dark delivered on every aspect of the genre I most adore. I’m talking about academia with a magical bent, a morally grey love interest and gothic atmosphere, The Whispering Dark does it all. Kelly Andrew really proved herself to be an accomplished writer with a strong grasp on character beats and gorgeous prose with her debut.

The story follows Delaney— a Deaf college student with a mysterious connection to the afterlife, a connection that gains her admittance to a prestigious programme at Godbole University. There, she faces numerous accessibility issues from her professions and fellow students, as well as being launched headfirst into a murder mystery that is wrapped around the history of the University itself. Along the way, she meets Colton: a shadowy boy with more secrets than sense who she forms a tenuous alliance with in order to unravel the secrets binding them together.

The gothic atmosphere and tension, both between the reader and the plot and between Delaney and Colton, were my favourite parts of the story. Andrew’s atmospheric writing really lends itself well to creating a chilling, secretive environment for her plot to flourish. I genuinely had no clue where the plot was going and the twists really kept me on the edge of my seat. I think the plot and atmosphere will really appeal to readers who love Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House and those who enjoyed the “superhero” aspect of Vicious by VE Schwab. Personally, I didn’t see much of the Raven Boys comp outside of the school setting and unravelling of a mystery, but that’s just me.

I loved Delaney as a main character, and it was great to see Deaf own voices representation, and as someone who is hearing it was really enlightening to read about Delaney’s struggles with accessibility and how others perceive her disability. We definitely need more own voices stories in fantasy! I also enjoyed her relationship with Colton, though I did have some questions about their attraction and connection, as some of the initial world-building left some to be desired.

Which leads me to my one critique— I was pretty confused throughout a lot of the novel. While this was not a huge point for me as I do enjoy worlds and magical systems that are somewhat up to interpretation, it felt like the story was missing a good 30% at the start that could have been lent to setting up the magic and supernatural elements. For example, I still have no idea what the university programme was actually set up to *do*. I think I would’ve found it a lot more immersive if I could have better set the scene for the rest of the plot.

That being said. I really did love this book and think Kelly Andrew will have a wonderful career ahead of her and I will gladly recommend The Whispering Dark and read whatever else she may write!

4/5 stars

KELLY ANDREW YOUR VIBES WILL ALWAYS BE UNMATCHED.

It's October 1st, and I couldn't imagine a better book to usher in spooky season. THE WHISPERING DARK positively creaks with ghosts and candlelit corridors and the smell of slowly rotting leaves. It's darkness and snow and velvet, and I wish I could wrap myself in a blanket made of Andrew's writing.

I will admit that I enjoyed the atmosphere more than the plot of this one. Something about it felt weirdly ... disjointed? Scenes often ended abruptly, key moments seemed missing or glossed over, and nobody answered a goddamn question directly for about 98% of the book. BUT. But, but, but. That atmosphere was divine, and so was the romance. Not only was it intensely cool to see a Deaf protagonist, but the ~tension~ between Delaney and Colton SIZZLED.

(cough cough the elevator scene. if you know you know.)

If you're into blazers, studying Latin by moonlight, and a decent spoonful of gruesome deaths & jumping to Hell and beyond, then THE WHISPERING DARK is the autumn read for you.

I didn't really know what I was getting into when I first started reading this, it felt a bit like Crave by Tracy Wolff and Ninth House. The pacing was a bit of a plod at the beginning with Price not really wanting to share any of himself and Lane struggling to adjust in her new school. The deaf rep seemed to be done well and made it abundantly obvious we still don't have enough disability rep in literature. I would love to see where Lane and Price ended up in the future but for now i'm content with a well rounded novel.

I was really looking forward to this promising story with the gorgeous, unsettling cover ‘for fans of The Raven Cycle & Ninth House‘ but I’m dnf’ing it at 30%.

I adore both stories it’s being marketed as and was hoping this book would deliver either the lovable troubled characters or at least the palpable ~vibes~ to match but almost a third of the way through the book, I didn’t find anything gripping about it.

The characters are weak and one-dimensional and there is no relationship building to speak of, unless you count the mysterious, apparently forbidden, instalove and instafriendships with the protagonist’s dormmates. The portrayal of Laney’s disability is unfortunately the only intriguing feature of her character. She and everyone else come off as rough ideas of quirky personalities rather than relatable or interesting characters whose journeys a reader would enjoy following.

Another reviewer on Goodreads pointed out how underdeveloped everything about this story feels, making it seem as if entire character interactions, dialogue and worldbuilding elements were missing and I couldn’t agree more. I wasn’t engaged by it because I felt like I was skimming through the text. Nothing was explained and nothing propelled the plot forward unless things miraculously pick up after the first 110 pages I read.

Kelly Andrew certainly has a way with words, her prose is lyrical and flowery, unfortunately at times to the point of making the reader feel lost in her analogies and metaphors. It doesn’t deliver on the promised ‘atmosphere and vibes‘ either because the writing draws attention to itself to the point of breaking the reader’s immersion in its storytelling.
I’m sorry but this one just didn’t work for me on any level.

Thank you to Netgalley and Gollancz for the e-ARC.

this book is pure vibes.

there are certainly a lot of interesting concepts and ideas - with little to no world building or even substance to back them up. i think i may even be offended by the comp, it totally bamboozled me. the prose grated on my nerves after a while, poetic but also headache inducing. in my opinion, packing your writing full of synonyms just disrupts the flow of your story and makes for an unpleasant reading experience. at the end of the day, i signed up to read a novel, not a thesaurus.

but The Whispering Dark may work for you if you're into whatever is going on between Lane and Colton. apparently they had a past? an instant connection? an illogical need to be with each other just because the vibes demand it? the plot basically revolves around them and if you don't buy whatever their relationship (?) is trying to sell, then there's no point in continue reading. and don't even get me started on the cartoonish villain :)

Ever since Delaney Meyers-Petrov lost her hearing, she’s been treated as fragile. Being accepted into the mysterious Godbole University is her chance to prove them all wrong. The prestigious program teaches students to slip between parallel worlds, and her affinity with shadows makes her a promising recruit. Yet when classes start, she falls behind, the professors making no adjustments for her disability.

When Colton Price was nine, he died. When he returned to this world, he awoke to the gaze of a little girl. Now that little girl is in his classes, and he’s under strict instructions to stay away from her, yet he keeps finding himself drawn to her. Having to be cruel to push her away.

The Whispering Dark is a fantastic, moody, dark academia that fans of the genre are sure to love. It had a similar feel to Vita Nostra as in what on earth are these students being taught to do? Although the purpose of Godbole will become clear.

It’s not exactly a secret school, people seem to know they teach out of the ordinary subjects but is generally well respected, since they have such exclusive entry requirements. At first Delaney thinks she’s failed, but really her examiners could see what she could not. Or at least she doesn’t really understand the shadows lapping at the edges of her mind.

Delaney is scared of the dark, and shadows seem to gather near her, whispering in the silence in her head. She is Deaf and has a cochlear implant, and the story shows how some things are harder for her to hear than others. Like busy lecture halls, with so much going on, she finds it hard to take notes. But fearing being treated differently, as she has all her life, she doesn’t want to make a fuss.

Colton knows she’s Deaf though and reaches out to help her. Even though he shouldn’t, but he can’t help it, she is intrinsically linked to him being alive somehow. It soon becomes clear that a group of the boys are part of some sinister group, and someone is trying to control Colton, to keep him away from Delaney.

As classes progress, Delaney discovers a list of names and begins to try and unravel the secrets behind them, following a path into ever darker territory. It's a perfect atmospheric read as the the nights draw in.

I love the cover design, looks like a bunch of flowers right? Look closer, are those skulls on the petals? Creepy!

Premise is great. Representation in the MC is great.

The pacing and story let this one down. Was left a little confused throughout, wondering if I'd missed something previously (apparently I'm not the only one with this issue).

Felt this could have been improved with a more flowing plot/world building/development.

Overall, I liked this book but didn't love it. Elements I enjoyed included a deaf protagonist with a connection to the dead, the creepy dark-academia atmosphere, and the lyrical prose. I think the writing would have benefited from a little more editing as there were some sudden changes in pace that left me wondering if I'd accidentally skipped pages. The romance was quite well-handled but further development could have strengthened their relationship and allowed the reader to feel more invested in them as a couple. This is one of those books that relies a little too heavily on vibes alone. Saying all that, I read it in two sittings and loved certain aspects so I'm sure this will be very popular with some readers.

Although I quite liked most of the characters in this book, the plot left me really confused. Half the time I wasn't really sure what had just happened, and there was no world building so I wasn't sure what the parameters were at any point. Sometimes, I wasn't even sure which characters were in a scene!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the publisher, Orion Publishing Group, Gollancz for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a honest review.

Non omnis moriar

This book sounds the way a tall glass of cold water hits after a morning of yard work. I was absolutely gasping at the bit for this one! It was on my list of most anticipated reads for the fall, my dislike of the cover aside.

A story of a Deaf MC with a cochlear implant navigating academia, even though they made no space for her, all the while having to deal with whispers from the shadows, mysterious deaths on campus and a TA with a striking familiarity of a dead boy from her past, like could a story get more intriguing than this???

It not actually fitting the enemies/ rivals to lovers trope, aside, this is a romance novel, with a lot of delightful weirdness, surreptitious occurrences and a dreadfully slow pace, more focused on gorgeous prose and the tension and chemistry of the two leads than diving into this strange world of parallel universes and doors to where the dead reside.

Which is fine, I love when romance novels go out there on their secondary plots, but this truly wasn’t what I thought I was getting into, so I was a bit disappointed. Nevertheless, I persisted through the knuckle-dragging, deliberately obtuse structure which was used to add layers of mystery and tension, but instead came off as disjointed and uneven, and for my persistence, in the end, there was quite a bit of excitement that made for an enjoyable read.

I recommend this for the October spooky read lovers, who want something light to start the season off with that’s mainly romance with a male lead that absolutely reluctantly (outwardly) but inwardly pines for the female lead. I also really enjoyed the Deaf rep, I think that seeing Delaney try to find her place in this world that deliberately makes zero accommodations for her was very powerfully done, and I was infuriated by these experiences that are no doubt based off of real life experiences of people disabilities.

While I did find this an easy read, I didn’t really like the book, but I imagine loads of people will. I will focus on the good bits first.
I received a copy of this book for a free and unbiased opinion

I haven’t read many books where with good disability rep, but in Lane the author has managed to create a woman who isn’t defined by her deafness but must overcome the daily challenges this brings. I loved the fact The Whispering dark had diverse range of characters and seamlessly wove this into the story.
The book is told from Lane and Colton’s point of view. Colton while on the surface appears to be a privileged student is also dealing with loss and abandonment which makes his fixation with Lane understandable. The world-building and the descriptions of the paranormal including parallel world were descriptive and interesting but not unique.
But like I said before I didn’t enjoy this book despite the positives. The book seems to focus on the relationship between Colton and Lane at the expense of the supernatural elements, and it felt at times I was reading a romance with some paranormal elements. I figured out pretty quickly who the Apostle was, and their motivations seemed a little boring and by the end I still couldn’t figure why they disliked Lane.
Lane also seemed to have some potent power of her own which seemed to take second place to the romance with Colton which was disappointing. But towards the end, I felt uncomfortable with the power dynamics between the two of them (although this would have made interesting reading if this was explored a little more).
Perfect for fans of
The Ninth House or paranormal romances with slightly more gore.

Let’s start with what I loved- the writing OHMYGOD IT WAS GORGEOUS, and also the only thing that kept me going. The concept sounded so good and I loved the vibes, but it just wasn’t enough.

Characters: I didn’t like the characters, or the plot for that matter. Our main character is deaf and I’m glad it wasn’t something that held her back. But she had no depth. She just dressed differently and could hear a voice in her head, thus the whispering dark. She hardly had any interactions with the other characters and her roommates. It felt like the focus of the story was more concentrated on the writing and the vibes rather than what was happening in the moment, and therefore every chapter was slower than the last. The romance was bland- I didn’t feel any chemistry between the two characters. They just had a shared experience and their romance and attraction was built on that.

Writing: As I said, it was beautiful, but it was also not great at a lot of points, when the scenes shifted. One second we were being told she’s in her room and literally the next sentence is her having a conversation with someone in her class. In that aspect I think this book needed an editor, or maybe the final form of this book might be different as I read it as an e-arc? I don’t know.

The pacing was super slow. There was nothing exciting, and I just wish it was different because this story had SO MUCH POTENTIAL! Nothing remotely interesting happened until the last 10% or so. The beginning was very strong and hooked me, so I was ready for a wild ride, but ultimately the whole plot is a mess. The author was trying to mix a lot of very different and interesting concepts, and it just didn’t work. Can the mc talk to the dead or the dark? They travel between worlds, but how? How did it come about? What is this institute that they go to study and how are you chosen except that you’ve had a near death experience?

I believe the advertising for this book made me have very high expectations. But if you want pure vibes with lyrical dialogue, then this is the book for you. Not for me, but maybe you’ll love all the things mentioned! I will still read more by this author :)

5*'s. I don't know if objectively this is a 5* book but I loved it so much that I cannot give it anything less. I am deeply, sickeningly, annoyingly obsessed (iykyk) with this book and these characters and their relationship. I thought it was beautifully written (to the point of sometimes being overwritten but I had no issue with this - I think others might). The magic was so interesting and the push and pull of the relationship was fantastic. The friendships outside of the romance I really enjoyed and it was so interesting to read a book about someone who is profoundly deaf and having to exist in a setting of academia where people are not providing the adjustments she needs or taking her seriously. Cannot wait to grab myself a physical copy and I think this book would be fantastic on audio so I will probably reread that way in the future. Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for providing me with an early copy.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with this eArc!

A beautifully gothic dark academia book, I adored this and it was everything I had hoped it would be <3

Thank you Netgalley and Orion publishing UK for the e-ARC, this is my honest opinion and views.
I was drawn to this book by it's cover and the description of the main character being deaf, pushing through her disability to take charge and to face the world she feels trapped in.
The supernatural elements adds to her alienation and even though she attends a school with other specially gifted people Delaney (Lane) still feels trapped by her disability due to the teachers not understanding.
I found the story a bit confusing and disjointed nothing really happens until 50% in the book, the school she attends is not explored much, neither is Lane and her abilities, Colton as the love interest was also bland and confusing at what his motives were throughout the book.
The classmates were underdeveloped and used to move the plot forward, the Apostle was a thorn but not prickly enough to make me care about his motives and who he was.
The story was creepy at times but I didn't feel on the edge about why this so called Entity has come to this world, and why it possessed all the others then entered Lane.
Colton and Lane will they won't they moments were far to many that falls flat, no outcomes developed from their interactions they just move on with a lot of tension and pining.
Overall the book was an good read but not for me I felt like it didn't quite no what it wanted to be, an horror story or murder mystery? The characters could do with more fleshing out both main and side characters.
My rating ⭐⭐⭐ I related to the main character struggling to fit in with her disability and people not understanding, I liked her determination to be independent.
Maybe not for me but I can see it resonating with its attended readers.
#netgalley #TheWhisperingDark

The whispering dark is a complex web of secrets, half-truths, romance, and haunting tension that lingers long after you have closed its pages.

Delaney Meyers-Petrov is used to being treated as if she’s a china doll; easily breakable. Having lost her hearing when she was younger she has had to learn to see and hear the world in a new way. Her acceptance into the prestigious university
Godbole, a school that teaches its students to walk between worlds, gives Delaney the opportunity she has been dreaming of to prove to herself that she is just as capable as everyone else.

The book itself is beautifully written. I loved the concept of the book, the way that the fantasy world was used to give the readers a way to understand some of the challenges that those who have lost their hearing face.
However, I personally found the plot of the book to be missing something that would hook me. I was able to guess what was going to happen from very near the beginning of the book. I had hoped that I was going to be wrong and that there would be an unexpected twist that was going to appear out of nowhere but unfortunately, the story followed the cliche villain plot line.

I found Colton to be the most interesting character and I wish there had been more time to delve into his story and the many layers of his personality that were shown throughout the book.

Overall I found the book to be enjoyable and I think it has a lot of potential. I didn’t fall in love with it but that doesn’t mean you won’t. I would definitely recommend giving it a go if you like urban fantasy!

Thank you to net galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

2.5

Yes, I see the Ninth House influences, VERY clearly. However, the underdeveloped romance ruined it. There was also too much focus on the romance instead of mystery. Like, shouldn't there be more people involved??? More explanations? More explorations? IDK. The prose was fine. I liked Lane as a character.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for an E-ARC in exchange for my honest review!

As someone with a hearing impairment, I've been searching high and low for fantasy, paranormal, sci-fi etc. books with a Deaf/deaf/HOH. The majority of the representation I see is in contemporary novels which is a genre I don't read much of. When I saw that The Whispering Dark has a deaf main character, it instantly became my most anticipated debut of 2022. The Whispering Dark is an own voices book with the author being deaf herself.

Oh. My. God. Words cannot express how much I loved this book. It's probably the best dark academia book I've read. It's a perfect blend of fantasy and horror with a plot surrounding a mystery. With disability rep and enemies to lovers, I knew from the get-go it would make it to my top reads of 2022.

There is so much tension throughout this book, particularly between Delaney and Colton. Colton Price is such a simp for Delaney and oh my god, I loved him. I loved the nickname he has for Delaney and honestly, I might have chuckled to myself when he said it for the first time. Delaney is a character who doesn't want to be defined by her disability, something I related to on so many levels and I'm sure the majority of the disabled community feels the same way.

The romance in this book was on point. There was just the right about of romance and it didn't overpower the plot which I loved. It's a slow burn but boy is it worth it. Some of my favourite tropes are in this book: forced proximity, forbidden romance, "I don't like anyone but you", "who did this to you", oblivious to the fact they're dating and as I mentioned earlier, enemies to lovers.

The prose is so beautiful and elegant, I just know it will be hard to find a book with prose just as good.

Kelly Andrew is now an insta-buy author and I can't wait to read more from her!

This book hit all the spots for me. And I feel grateful to have received an ARC.

The book gives very dark academic, fantasy, horror vibes with a romantic plot line threaded throughout.
Delaney (Lane) had always felt that she is different, sensing things amongst the shadows but has always tried to push that side of her away.
Colton has tried his whole life to try and stay away from Lane but somehow finds that their paths collide time after time.
When the two run into each other at school the pair become entwined together.
With a secret cult and a magic system unlike anything I’ve seen before the book grips you from first line to last. And yes I cried at the end!

The Whispering Dark is a beautifully haunting tale with dark academia vibes and a chilling mystery.

I really enjoyed this fast paced book. It has a unique plot and beautiful prose that really sucks you into the story. The romance between Delaney and Colton is prominent and an excellent addition to the main plot. This book has brilliant representation of people with impaired hearing since our main character, Delaney is deaf.

Delaney is granted a scholarship at a university that specialises in unusual studies. Colton is a teaching assistant with a mysterious and dark past, which is linked to Delaney.

I do think that this book is more of a fantasy/mystery as opposed to horror. Whilst this book is highly enjoyable, it slightly lacks the elements one would expect from a horror.

Overall, I really loved The Whispering Dark and think it is the perfect read for autumn.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for the ARC in exchange for an honest review