This is the story of a young man (do we know his name?) with a working class background and a talent for music, who enters Cambridge university as an undergraduate. He meets a glamorous upper class man called Bryn who has a talent for mayhem and magic, and becomes an acolyte of his. He also, thankfully, has a sensible friend who is studying medicine, called Tim, who advises him against the worst excesses that hanging around with Bryn and his crowd bring. Eventually, things come to a head and the whole of his life is affected, the only constant being Tim. There are some strange ghostly happenings which ad a mystical touch. This is great coming of age story, set within the hallowed halls of a great university and totally capturing the essence of the place.

"It was beautiful and horrible all at once."

Thank you 4th estate for asking me to review this book! When the request landed in my inbox I knew I was in for a treat.

I read it almost exclusively late at night by my fake oil lamp which was perfect. Reading it felt like walking down a familiar road late at night, when before you know it a fog has rolled in and someone might be following you and also it might not be human and can you hear that scratching sound?

This book is about so many things:

Fear, love, ghosts, grief, music, friendship, obsession, the occult, memory, class, academia, magic.

It's quickly become one of my favourites of the year and I'm in awe of how beautifully it's crafted. This made me FEEL THINGS !!

💀

Out: 16th January 2025

💀

When I tell you I RAVED about this book as I was reading it to anyone who would listen, I'm not exaggerating.

Looking beyond this incredible title and cover and there exists the most incredible first chapter I've ever read. It was so instantly terrifying and unnerving that my instincts told me to put it down, but the writing style had its hooks in me from the first description and wasn't going to let me go. Thank god it didn't.

The familiar imagery of a working class northern household was so clear on the page before class was even mentioned. The description was so vivid and so concise. Sharp observations that immediately stick the picture in your brain. It's the kind of writing style I wish I had. Then the contrast to the rich world our narrator is transported to is so clear.

The masterpiece of this novel is the horror. So subtle and perfect, it feels like a delicate thread holding all the themes together. It perfectly captures the all too familiar and unique terror of not belonging.

💀

I could compare it to If We Were Villains (another fave), I could say it's everything that Saltburn fell short of, I could use "dark academia" buzz words, but this story is in a whole new genre of its own.

10/10 can't wait to read again when it comes out next year

The unnamed male narrator has been musical from birth, his talents securing him a place at Cambridge around the turn of the millennium. A state school attendee, he arrives from a small northern town, the gifted proverbial fish out of water. Maybe this is a chance for reinvention though perhaps Cambridge will put him in his place as he doesn’t really understand the rules, the routines and the game playing. A few weeks in he becomes riveted by the enigmatic, charismatic and magnetic Bryn Cavendish into whose orbit he is lured, charmed, mesmerised and probably bewitched. Bryn is at the centre of the Cambridge universe, a modern day Sun King around whom many orbit. Bryn is from a wealthy background and at the heart of every Cambridge function at which he often performs magic tricks. As the narrator gets deeper and deeper into Bryn’s world, an obsessive feverish friendship develops. Has he given his soul to the devil? Has fate brought them together and what will fate have in store as two worlds collide. The story is told in dual timelines, from the Cambridge days and in the present day which flows as organically as the River Cam.

This is a stunning haunting debut novel which is so powerful with several layers to the storytelling. I love the dark academia trope so this is tailor made for me. It’s perplexing, intriguing and has me in its thrall from beginning to end. It’s a fantastical novel of obsessive friendship, steeped in magic and mystery with a strong ghostly gothic element with a dream like or even nightmarish quality. It has me puzzling and questioning what is real and what is illusion or even delusion but maybe potentially both. The storytelling is vivid, there are moments of high tension, some scenes are electric and for much of the narrative there’s an unsettling, off kilter sensation. It’s all consuming and mesmerising, at times it’s horrifying and certainly haunting and at others it’s sad and tragic.

As well as the dynamic between Bryn and his circle and the narrator there are so many other noteworthy aspects that form the novel. There’s the juxtaposition of the privileged like those surrounding Bryn versus our narrators background and that of his true friend, Tim. There’s a strong musical element too which gives it a very different vibe from other novels in this genre. The narrator’s obsession with the mysterious Peter Warlock is a touch of brilliant as it works so well alongside the unfolding drama between the two young men. Wrapped around the whole is a superb atmosphere, it positively drips with it. There’s not only that of Cambridge itself which provides colour, unease and danger but there’s an ever present elusive ghostly creepiness. In addition, the characterisation is exemplary although some are far from likeable.

Overall, I’m sure this will be one of my books of the year. It gives me so much to think about as it builds to an excellent ending where all the emotions are on display from love to jealousy to guilt. I will continue to reflect on what are true recollections and accurate memories and what are distorted for whatever reason. It’s beautifully written and I’m in awe of what the author has achieved in this stunning debut.

I really like the cover too.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to 4th Estate for The much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

I love dark academia but it can be very hit and miss for me. Happily this was the former. The perfect tale of obsession and darkness with a slight supernatural twist. Unsettling and satisfying. Highly recommend.

Fans of The Cloisters, The Four, If We were Villains will enjoy this book. The ending felt particularly poignant and the slow unravelling creates enjoyable tension

Delusion versus illusion in this academically orientated gothic story. When does performance magic become real magic, or does it? Atmosphere and surroundings are everything and their delineation is unerringly portrayed in the novel. Suggestively and ultimately, I even found myself peering at shadows in darkened vistas.

The Scret History meets Saltburm in this powerful twist on the dark academia genre.

Its themes of obsession, jealousy, dark magic, abandonment and class are deftly explored.. Meticulous plotting throws up surprising twists. The prose is gloriously accomplished. But what shines is the depth of characterisation that makes the story feel authentic and tense and keeps readers hooked to the storyline.

A masterpiece of writing and a brilliant addition to the genre that is surely set to become a bestseller.

I am forever searching for The Secret History-esque reads so it’s safe to say that the plot of Kate van der Borgh’s And He Shall Appear enthralled me immediately. And, wow, did it not disappoint. This dark academia novel is exactly that; unsettling, eerie and enchanting. This story consumed me: I felt jittery both whilst reading and whilst itching to get back to it. This trope is done a lot (I would never say over done and I will never get bored of it) but what makes And He Shall Appear a true masterpiece - and it is - is that it is uniquely different, both through its particular story, and some genre weaving, but also by van der Borgh’s ability to explore through our unnamed narrators own obsession, why we (I know it’s not just me!) are so obsessed with these types of stories. Privilege, class and education are explored along with jealously, obsession and relationships. The ending was superb: twist upon twist, none of which I had completely foreseen, and although quite sad, honestly, it felt very right. I know I read this in August but it will make the perfect autumnal read. And He Shall Appear is mesmerising, chilling and compulsive: a book that had me reading til the early hours whilst simultaneously never wanting it to end; devouring every word, rereading whole parts, all to ensure I’d understood the meaning, felt the moment and truly taken everything I could from this. 5 stars gladly given - loved.

I will surely not be the only person to comment on the Saltburn vibes here, there are definitely similarities, the main one being the obsessive friendship.
The NEED to be in Bryn's circle.
I very much enjoyed this book, it had me wondering a lot, what was real, what was imagined.
What was lying in the depth of our main characters mind??
It had its creepy moments, and a nice build up to what should have been quite dramatic, but I felt underwhelmed by.
Non the less, the final chapters put everything to rights.
A very good debut.

And He Shall Appear is a novel about a young musician's obsessive friendship with a fellow student, a charismatic magician who seems to tread a line between life of the party and dark power. The narrator, who remains unnamed, starts at Cambridge as an outsider, but he quickly discovers Bryn Cavendish, a powerful presence who does magic tricks like his occultist father. As the narrator is drawn into Bryn's world and away from the academic drudgery, he starts to believe that Bryn holds far more power than it first appears, and as the narrator tells the story years later, this power might be still lingering.

This book is immediately going to fall into the 'dark academia' category, and admittedly, for once it actually lives up to that name in some ways, as it is very much focused on a dark side of being a student at Cambridge, and the narrator's obsession with a particular musician lends it more of the 'academia' element that many books labelled dark academia seem to forget. The story is told to us from a present day, in which the narrator is returning to Cambridge for an event, but most of the book is set in the past of his first couple of years at Cambridge as he unfolds a particular story. As with many dark academia books clearly taking inspiration from The Secret History, he is an unreliable narrator, and indeed the book is preoccupied with ideas of the stories we create, leading to an ending in which we come to understand that there's more than one way of telling a story, as with playing a musical piece.

I enjoyed reading this book, with its accurate Oxbridge detail and the undercurrent of dark magic and hauntings that are always meant to be a little mysterious, and the narrator's obvious hiding of certain characters' identities or their exact fates is fairly predictable, but still works pretty effectively to get across how he is potentially rewriting the past. However, at times it felt a bit 'dark academia by numbers' in its choices, and I do find it hilarious that so many books in the sub-genre tend to have a less posh/outsider-type person suddenly finding themselves at a fancy university and throwing off the regular people to find some mesmerising yet dark people (having done the former personally, it didn't turn into any kind of dark academia set up, I have to admit). This book fits that stereotype and doesn't do very much with it, and I do feel like the whole 'outsider tries to make themselves part of the narrative' thing felt too predictable given that I've read other similar books that do a similar thing.

The obsessive friendship element I did enjoy, though I felt that the book's ending was the only place where this was really delved into very much, and there was never really enough space to say much other than 'you can obsessively love someone platonically' and then not really go anywhere with that. There might be something in the idea that these kinds of obsessive friendships are often depicted in fiction in ambiguous ways that could make them queer or not, and in this case it is meant to explicitly not be, and what that might mean for the book, and generally for how male obsessive friendships might be seen as weirder than female ones generally in pop culture and society.

Generally, this is a solid example of a dark academia novel and will appeal to people who like them, with enough accurate detail and sinister-seeming happenings to warrant it that title. For me, I found that it was often too predictable, not really delving into anything that might make it different or stand out in the category, so though I had fun reading it, I wasn't captivated by it like I have been by books like The Secret History or The Lessons.