I always enjoy a good dark academia read, and this one also had faeries which I love as long as they're not growling toxic love interests but more akin to their dark folk tale counterparts. <i>The Scholar and the Last fairie Door</i> has just those, and I really enjoyed my time with this book.

The story begins in the early 20th century when our protagonist Clover's brother goes to fight in World War I and returns injured and cursed by a strange faerie, brought onto the battlefield via a faerie door opened by a German soldier. This incident and the hundreds of dead soldiers causes the sealing of all faerie doors and ban on any kind of faerie magic. Because in this world, as Clover is about to find out, magic does exist - in secret, cultivated by elite magical families even though any human is capable of it in theory. Clover decides to study magic to find a cure for her brother's curse, which brings her to England's big magical university, Camford, the academia setting for this dark academia book. There, she becomes part of a group of friends very interested in learning about forbidden fairie magic, all with their own reasons and agendas.

I really liked the world H.G. Parry built in this standalone. There is a lot to love about her system of magic as a study subject that is kept secret by an elite unwilling to share its power, an elite that somehow seems to have a much easier time learning and doing magic than simple people like Clover. Admittedly, the world building doesn't go all too deep, but what was there was a lot of fun.
The writing is beautiful too, the characters are all intriguing. Clover is a relatable protagonist, and I like the friend group consisting of her, outsider Eddie and rich noble friends Alden and Hero. There was, sadly, something missing from this friendship dynamic between them. They never really felt like thaaaaaat good of friends, despite the story telling us they are. But still, I liked the group. There is a time jump after an important event so we see them as both teenagers and ten years older versions of themselves, and the way their lives and relationships evolved and developed was intriguing to say the least.

So all in all, this is a great character-driven book in a well-built dark academia setting that tells an exciting story over a timespan of ten years, and I could barely put it down despite it definitely having some slow-paced lengths especially during the middle parts. 4 stars, would buy beautiful hardcover version of this.

I'm adoring H. G. Parry's take on the faerie world and this book was such a work of beauty. Set against a background of war and dark academia, Clover Hill has made her way into what should be a forbidden world of magical study. She's drawn into an intoxicating circle of friends, the enigmatic Alden, the brave Hero and quietly spoken Eddie. Together they disturb the last faerie door and unleash a horrific chain of events.
I adored this book. The characters just burst from the page, coming alive. I adored the setting of Camford, the magical university set against the backdrop of a world dealing with the aftermath of WW1.
This is a novel that explores class, elitism and feminism in a truly magical way. I absolutely adored this novel.
A stunning, dark fantasy novel that had me gasping at the twists and turns.
This genuinely felt like a grown up Harry Potter!
Thank you so much to Natgalley and the publishers for providing an arc in return for an honest review.

That's one of my favorite books of the year.

If you're looking for a mix of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries and Harry Potter (but by an author who isn't openly transphobic),I can't recommend The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door enough. I was a tiny bit worried coming into it, as I don't like true wars in my reads, but decided to give it a go as I've loved The Magician's Daughter by the author, and it was so good. We follow a girl who learns that elites of UK have the ability to use magic when her brother comes home after a war, stricken by a faerie curse. She wants to help him, so she decides to try her best to learn magic in an academy, possibly earning herself a life of her own, not depending on having a husband. It's a book for people who love reading about found family, scary faeries (as opposed to the sexy ones) and a love for knowledge. It was very very immersive and the way it's told lets you know from the very beginning that not everything ends well, so there's also foreboding. There are complicated familial relations and trying to sort out your priorities in life, hidden societies, magical libraries and a queer rep. Honestly, so much is packed into this book and I've known it would be 5✨ from the very beginning. It was also probably the 'highest' 5 star book I've had this year, I wouldn't change anything about it. It's vastly underhyped and it was everything I've been looking for in a story. In a way, it made me remember what I've felt as a kid, sinking into books and forgetting about real world.

Such a beautiful story, historical and magical setting in 1920's England just after WW1.
I love the university for mages and the faeries but what I loved the most were the characters, their relationships, their growth.
I'll re-read it in a few years with joy.

5 stars - dark academia with fae magic set in the 1920s!

Whilst fighting in World War One, Clovers brother Mathew is hit buy a faerie curse. The magic world is hidden from humans and only the “families” have access to the magic. In order to find a cure, Clover studies hard to win a scholarship to the magical school of Camford. There she meets three friends and they set out to find a cure, but faerie magic has now been banned and the doors to their world are now locked as the faerie that cursed Mathew also killed multiple others on the battlefield.

I have a bit of love hate relationship with dark academia and fae books but I devoured this story. I felt like it was a perfect mix of the two and I absolutely loved the time period it was set in and how the author blended WW1 with a hidden fantasy world.

The story is told from Clovers perspective as if she is writing or telling someone of her story, and I sometimes had to remind myself that this was a fictional story as it felt so real. Both the characters and the world are described so in depth and realistically I felt as if I had known them myself. I loved the friendship between all of the characters and I felt their heartbreak and hope as the story continued. I had no idea how it was coming to a close and as a stand-alone I felt like it remarkably well done. Though slow paced at times I was never once bored and i was always dying to pick it back up.

I would recommend to fans of Babel - I felt as though the story had the same world and character building and the same complexity as that, for myself personally, I enjoyed this one more than Babel. Will most definitely look into the authors others works.

I can’t tell you how much I loved this book. Truly - I feel like it was made for me.

With lush worldbuilding surrounding a mysterious, hidden university for magic set between the folds of England in the 1920s and a sharp edged faerie world, a main character both earnest and determined that you can’t help but root for, and surrounded by a deeper conversation around the price of academia and those who fall beneath the weight of all of demands, The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door was easily one of my favourite reads this year.

Clover Hill quickly proved herself to be my favourite type of first person MC - transparent with the reader while careful to work through each step of the plot. The story follows her from 17 well into adulthood as she is determined to master magic to save her brother from a faerie curse via attending a magical university and weaving herself into a group of friends who just might hold the answers secreted away inside them. I adored the slowly building plot and how I truly didn’t know how the story was going to end. Overall, this was a wonderful read and made me want to dive into the rest of HG Parry’s work immediately!

This is my second H.G. Parry book and it certainly won't be the last. The Scholar and the Last Fairie Door is the kind of dark academia/fantasy that I seem to love (eg: Babel, Blood over Bright Haven) - one that not only uses the "dark academia" as vibes but also as the forefront of the story. I enjoyed reading the memoir-like writing in this book by Clover, our main character. For a dark academia book, this book also has some cozy moments which I also just really loved? My first H.G Parry book was also really cozy so I think it's one of the authors' specialty.

This book is narrated in two different time settings. The first half was set when Clover was younger and was just accepted into Camford. As a Non-Family, she did not have the skills, knowledge or materials like her colleagues do but she was determined to find a way to save her brother Matthew from the faerie curse that struck him during the war. There, she met Alden - who is also just as interested about the faerie world as her and along with that, Hero and Eddie. I loved the magical school setting in the first half and watching the friendship between these 4 grew, as Clover become more attached to the friend group.

The second half was set 8 years after the tragedy that split the friend group apart and Clover is forced to acknowledge and fix whatever happened that one night 8 years ago. If the first half was more slow paced, the second half was definitely more fast-paced (which I honestly liked even more as the first half felt kind of sluggish at time). The second half was darker and more intense, where Clover finally discovers the truth about the magic that surrounds Camford and the Families. I really really liked the way how the reveal was done! One thing that I didn't really like was just the sudden side plot twist that Clover revealed almost at the end to Alden - I feel like it was just thrown in randomly to maybe move the plot along. For something as big as that, I thought it should've been handled better.

Thank you so much to Orbit UK for the e-arc.

I expected to enjoy this (you should never pick up a book you don't think you'll at least like, really), but I didn't expect to connect to it so quickly and so fully.

In hindsight, that was silly of me. I'm very much into dark academia stories right now (aren't we all?), but more than that, I'm always into stories about found family and/or friends who build weirdly close, potentially toxic, almost definitely codependent relationships, but they're just so charming. And that's really where this story shone.

The bond between Clover, Hero, Alden, and Eddie was the clear highlight and what truly sucked me in. I found myself being charmed by Alden just as Clover did, I wanted to be best friend's with Hero like Clover, and I was almost instantly getting protective over Eddie like Clover. All four of them had such well-defined personalities, it was easy to get wrapped up in their group.

The world building (1920s but with magic and fae!), the historical aspects, the character backgrounds and family, the plot and the way the plot's tension built, all of it was done with obvious care and skill, but all of it was secondary to the work of the four main characters and their relationship. By the time things started going a bit sideways, you are so engrossed in the characters that you really cared about what happened to them. Which is exactly what I want in a book, so I cannot ask for anything more here.

Thank you to the publisher, Orbit, and to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to @orbitbooks_uk for sending me a proof of The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Fae creatures entice me as a reader - I love all their weird and wonderful forms in myth and how they inspire authors in new creative ways with their storytelling. H G Parry brought together academic setting ruled by the patriarchy and upper class, Greek mythology and the circumstances of the Great War to create a story about betrayal, struggle for gender equality for education in 1920s against pressure to marry, destruction of nature and craving for power

Written in a biographical tone, the storytelling recants from the past to the present, showing how events started and came to the climatic events of the plot from the POV of the female scholar protagonist, Clover, who comes from a non-magical family from a farming class. The pacing is very slow-paced, focusing on bringing the characters to life, exploring their bonds, and determining how their actions/decisions drive the plot.

I experienced a love-hate relationship with the characters who were complicated, frustrating and very morally grey (throwing each under the bus all the time with secrets and betrayals). I enjoyed their complex dynamics and personal struggles with emotions and mental health issues. The faeries are portrayed with chillingly otherworldism, and nature styled from the older, darker fairytale versions.

A magical historical fiction full of Faeries, chaos, against what I would call a grey academic setting (but it's murky as hell with some questionable decisions by humans seizing magical power). There is an emotional punch about how much suffering was caused in war, struggling for your rights, consequences of harming nature and the terrible things we will do protect/save our loved ones.

I knew I was going to like this book. Magical university, plot surrounding the legends of folklore and a rich historical setting are the perfect cocktail of some of my favourite elements for a book. What I did not expect was to be in pieces crying at the end of this novel. The best part of this novel was the character dynamics. Though the plot was gripping the aspect of this novel that truly fascinated me was addicted to the relationship between Alden, Clover, Eddie and Hero. I adored their friendship and the journey of love and betrayal that they embarked on.

I haven't read Parry before but now I will be reading her entire backlog. The writing had me gripped from the very first page. Our protagonist Clover's narrative, her complex feelings and her slightly unreliable narration kept me engaged throughout all 460 pages. Though the setting was amazing, filled with the best aspects of every dark academia novel from interesting magical classes to a sprawling library, the mystery at the heart of the novel and the characters relationships made me obsessed with this book.

I started reading The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door on eBook and loved it so much I RAN to buy it in paperback upon release. I would highly recommend this book for fans of the Emily Wilde series and also fans of books that engage with the darker aspects of the fae.

Review cross posted on Goodreads and a post about the book was put on Instagram.

This is a fantastically written character driven heartbreaking story. Beginning with a brother cursed during the war by a faerie on a rampage, Clover delves into a little known magic school (only known to those belonging to the Families who have magic in their blood) called Camford. Lucky for her, she gets to an invitation to join the group of Alden, Hero, and Eddie which paves the way for her first year of fun, investigations into banned faerie magic, looking for a cure for Matthew and ultimately a parting of ways after the disaster in the summer. Because it is character driven and you get to know the group well, and get to like them the way Clover does, you can feel the heartbreak she goes through when their group falls apart, secrets divulged and rifts made. And that is only the first half of the novel!

I think the second half is even more emotional as the reader will find out there are even darker secrets and bargains made and stolen as Clover rushes to put the pieces together to help her friend before it is too late and also save her school where she has taught for the past eight years as the faerie that had cursed Matthew goes on a rampage, breaking the locks on faerie doors while the Families continue to keep their secrets and try to kill any loose ends. It made me feel for Clover but also the faerie when the truth is revealed and I was not sure who I wanted to root for (definitely not the Families though for their secrets and desire to hold power no matter what it costs or hurts!) There is betrayal, redemption, heartache, sacrifices, and ultimately hope for a future that may be different than the old ways, but will be better because the right thing was done, and not just the easy way.

A very well written book that I absolutely loved, even with the sadness because there is always a grain of hope and Clover shows that you can survive and thrive and make a good future for everyone and not just the Families.

3.5 stars

This book confirmed that dark academia is not the best genre for me. Theoretically, it should work and it should also work pretty well for me, because everything sounds pretty good, but… but in the end, I enjoyed a few of the dark academia books I read, and usually the ones that are less “typical” so.. yeah, it may not be the best choice for me. And my main problem here is because of vibes. So it is pretty hard to say what didn’t really work for me, because it is hard to describe vibes.
And, generally speaking, I can appreciate the books, like this one is a pretty well-developed book (and I will talk a bit more about that in a second) but if we talk about personal enjoyment… I did not really enjoy myself while reading.

That said, let’s focus on the book!
It is like the author did a checklist for dark academia tropes and things and vibes, and then proceeded to check them out, one after another. In a really methodical way, I have to say, and giving each one the time to grow and develop on pages. It gives me some “scientific” vibes (scientific is not really appropriate, but more like a historian doing the work, it has scholarly vibes not only for the reading part, but also for the writing. I am making sense here??) like this was a kind of experiment, sort of.

If you loved The Secret History, If We Were Villains, and Death in the Spires, you’ll love this one too.
They all follow the same exact script. Honestly, I enjoyed K.J. Charles quite a lot, while the other two didn’t work so well for me. Mostly it’s about the vibes, they are pervaded by what felt to me like malaise, and I am not a fan. But there is also the fact that they are, all things considered, not high stakes. Mind me, it made sense, obviously, but still, when all was said and done I was always left with an “okay, so what?” feeling. A sense of dissatisfaction because everything was, in the end, so small, at least in a sense.
Well, with this book this part is not here. This is a dark academia that follows the script to a t, but with high stakes. And I was so happy about it!
The magical elements and the stakes were an interesting addition to it all.
But, simultaneously, I was expecting something more, on the side of personal enjoyment. I appreciated a lot of things in this book, the magic was interesting, and the author is good at describing the effect of the war. This book has a historical quality to it and great attention to detail, the author did a great job in this respect, and objectively I can appreciate it, but… but I wasn’t so invested in all of this, I appreciated it but didn’t really enjoy it.

So, I was hoping for more, but still, I think the author did a great job, and if you want to read a great dak academia book with magic and faeries… well, search no more!

2.5 stars
My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK and NetGalley UK for a free eARC of The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by H. G. Parry.
A blend of historical fantasy post World War I and magical academy with a few darker aspects and faerie.
This was my first book by the author and it started so promising. For some reason the first chapter made me think I will witness a dark academia in a fantasy setting, but my expectations were way too high.
The prose and the plot are accessible and easy to follow along and I think this book is suitable for both young adult and adult readers.
Personally, I could not help comparing it to "Babel" by R. F. Kuang and feeling disappointed as it did not had the same intensity, nor the same honest portrait of the darkness behind academia.
There were a few surface level commentaries about how patriarchal academics were and how difficult it was for women to have access to university or higher education.
My biggest complaint is about Lady Anjali Winter. She is a secondary character from India that married an English lord. We are being told this fact once and trough out the book she is mentioned as Lady Winter. She cautions the main heroine that academia is difficult for women and she has been driven out because of that. Nothing about RACISM which I am sure she experienced much more than lone discrimination based on sex. So that representation is just there to thick a box the same as the afterthought of having one of the main characters being gay, but only being revealed in the last part of the book and not actually having it explored at all.

"The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door" is a dark academia fantasy novel brimming with forbidden magic, faerie curses, and ambitious and privileged scholars. Clover Hills is unaware of this secret magical world until her brother returns from the front because he was cursed by a murderous fae. Clover decides to enter into the alluring world of Camford, a university hidden from mortal eyes, in order to save her brother, but also to become a scholar and to fit into that élite world ruled by Families.

The themes explored in this book are numerous and the author did a great job depicting Clover and Hero's condition as women in a university mostly attended by men. Clover is forced to endure even more sneering glances and muffled prejudices because she doesn't come from one of the Families that rule over the magical world, she's a farmer girl and she's willing to do anything to fit in.
The book is set at the end of the Great War, 1920 and it takes place in this university called Camford that can be reached by crossing a portal located in Oxford or Cambridge. I loved the setting, how it really seemed like part of the plot itself, as though it were a character. We explore Camford from Clover's point of view and she is in love with that place, it instantly felt like home since the moment she set foot in the university and it transpired from her every word.

The novel is divided into four parts that take place in different places and time periods. We follow Clover, Eddie, Alden, and Hero since their first year at Camford until they're almost 30. Even though the most action-packed scenes unfold during the second half of the book, I adored reading about their blooming friendship: an unlikely found family founded on their own loneliness. We read about four friends whose bond quickly grows into family and whose relationship was also based on lies and ambition, especially from Alden's and Clover's side. Even if all these characters are visibly flawed and despicable, and even if their choices are extremely selfish most of the time, their love for each other is palpable. So reading about their relationship and how it evolved turned out to be one of the most beautifully written things I read this year.
These characters will forever be part of me. Their bond and that ending will surely haunt me.

"The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door" is a character-driven book. It's Clover that narrates the event from her point of view, she's already experienced what she's recounting and she felt so much like an unreliable narrator, which I love, especially in dark academia novels.
The world building and the magic system aren't as developed as I hoped them to be, and yet it wasn't the whole point of the story, so it didn't ruin the book. But on the contrary, it matched with how the novel was written.

Do yourself a favor and read this book, especially if you're searching for something that feels like The Secret History or Babel, but with the magic and vibes of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries.

First of all: I find the blurb very unfortunate. The rough outline of the first part would have been enough. In hindsight, however, I feel that the short section about what happens years later is too much of a spoiler. Especially in view of how much of the story takes place in 1920/21.

The book itself reads like a very successful mixture of Frankenstein and Harry Potter.
Well, the comparison to Harry Potter always comes up quickly in the context of magic schools. In this case, I'm mainly referring to the feel of the world. How the protagonist, who had no idea about magic at the beginning of the book, arrives there and is ostracised by her ‘nobler’ classmates. How she makes friends (or rather how her friends find her) and how their relationship develops. It has to be said, however, that this relationship is developed in a much more nuanced way here, which is hardly surprising as the book is aimed at an older audience than HP.
There are also the various intertextualities with Frankenstein. The dark foreshadowing that you are about to make a mistake, for example. Or the fact that the protagonist bases her basic education on the outdated studies of Aggripa (and others), for which she is initially ridiculed by her professors - but which later turns out to be very useful, or devastating. In general, the motif of an ambitious and clever protagonist who wants to discover something revolutionary, only for her findings to make her life difficult later on, is very reminiscent of Frankenstein.

The setting of the time between the two world wars is refreshingly unused in today's literature, which also contributed to an enjoyable reading experience. Only the overly long chapters sometimes detracted from this. But that can of course be overlooked.
I found this experience very enriching and look forward to reading more of them. This was one of my favorites of the year! 5/5*

If somebody took everything good from The Secret History and Harry Potter, blended the ingredients to make them even better, it would result in H.G. Parry's THE SCHOLAR AND THE LAST FAERIE DOOR.

In the aftermath of WWI, Clover Hill, desperate to save her older brother from a faerie curse, puts her efforts into and succeeds at learning magic, enough to get a scholarship to Camden, Britain's secret, magical university. She is befriended by a group of students who recognise her desire to learn about fae magic and involve her into their own, forbidden doings. It's a story about despair, about friendship, about academia, and it's written in the best way you could possibly imagine.

I adored everything about this. From the prose and world-building to character development and their relationships, the intricate ways everything in this universe is connected, and a magic system that is simple yet perfect for the purposes of the narrative. I could spend hours talking about this book. I cried, I laughed, I loved and I lost, and for the time I spent reading this, I existed in an entirely different universe. I wish I could read it all over again. I wish there were sequels and prequels and spin-offs just as much as I don't, because it was perfect just as it was.

It's relatively slower-paced, so if you're someone expecting action from the get-go, this may not be the right fit. A lot of the story deals with the characters and their relationships, which is why The Secret History kept popping into my head, though I'd argue this is better written. The first part is perfect. It's everything I could've wanted from a book, as a child who grew up reading Harry Potter and the like, and eventually turned to dark academia. It's as if it was written for me. After the time-skip, things pick up and so does the action, everything comes to a high, and it's a brilliant pay-off.

It's been a while since I've read a book I loved this much, but I know I'll be recommending it to absolutely everybody for as long as I live.

After loving H.G. Parry's previous books, I was thrilled to get an early copy of The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door through NetGalley!

This historical dark academia fantasy is set in post-WWI England, where young Clover Hill journeys into a dangerous faerie magic world to lift a curse afflicting her brother, a survivor of a faerie-related wartime disaster.
She earns a scholarship to Camford, a renowned magical university, where she meets Alden Lennox-Fontaine and dives into forbidden studies, uncovering secrets that alter her views on friendship, loyalty, and reality itself.

While the book is beautifully written and atmospheric, I felt it lacked originality and depth in its characters.
Given Parry’s previous works and the intriguing plot—which reminded me of favorites like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Fairies—I expected to be obsessed with this book.
While enjoyable, it didn’t quite resonate as deeply as I’d hoped.
Perhaps it's just been a tough year with new releases for me, anyway I'll definitely be reading Parry’s future books!

I really loved this book and was sad when the story ended.
It takes us from Clover living on a farm with her siblings and her brother coming home from war with a fairy curse.
She works hard to learn magic as she is not from one of the families who have it in their veins.
She gets a scholarship to Camford where she meets Hero, Alden and Eddie.
We follow their friendship and what happens when they open a fairy door.
I loved the characters and descriptions of Camford the time between the wars, clothes etc.
I really liked Hero, Eddie and Clover also Richard and Mathew.
Alden I wasn't so fond of although I understand why he did some of the things he did.
These people and their stories stay with you long after the book is finished.
I will certainly seek out more of this author's books.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley.

This was a gem of a book.

At its core, The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door is a love letter to academia and its unconquerable spirit, but at the same time it doesn't shy away from criticising very real issues still present within it like class or gender inequality. This all gets entwined in a story about ambition, the value of friendship and the lengths one would go for knowledge.

The historical and fantasy aspects of the book were truly brilliantly written, but it was the characters that truly stole the show. Never have I read a friendship dynamic so beautifully, so heartachingly real and complex; all the main characters were perfectly flawed (including our unreliable narrator), putting their friendship in balance with their wants and ambitions, but still sticking by each other.

The pacing of the book is fittingly slow, as this is a book that needs not be rushed, but relished one word at a time.
H.G. Parry is trully a master of historical fantasy,and I will surely pick up more of her books in the future.

Thank you netgalley and little brown book group for giving me the opportunity to read this book in advance for an honest opinion!

This book has been out in the world for a couple of days now; this means I am a couple of days late in reviewing it but to finish this book took me longer than expected. A blessing and a curse, truly, because I wanted to live within its pages forever, but the pace is really slow. This is ultimately the only flaw I can find in this book: the first half seems nothing will ever happen, and then there is the last third of the book😅
As I said, though, I didn’t particularly mind it, because there is plenty to make up for it:

First thing first, the characters. I have rarely read about protagonists so well written, fully fledged in their rights and wrongs, their personalities so distinct I could imagine myself befriending them. Clover Hill is an unreliable narrator and her point of view, in retrospect, gives you everything you need to know (or at least what she thinks you need to know).
This narrative device got me hooked even through the slower sections of this book, because I really felt part of the group and related to Clover, and to her insecurities and ambitions.

Next, there is the story. You know me, I can’t miss the opportunity to read about scholars, faeries, enchanted universities and magic. Even more so when those elements are entwined with history and transcend the fantasy genre to deal with very real issues in the modern world: power, gender, class, knowledge, these are the main points here and I think the author did a brilliant job in pulling all the strings together to build a story that is not only entertaining and magical, but speaks to us to the very core.
Who are we, if not the relationships we build and the choices we make?