This is the first book I have read by H. G. Parry and I am completely won over! The author's evocative and vivid writing transported me into a story with dark undertones, full of complex and well-defined characters, immersed in an incredibly fascinating setting! I can't wait to read more of her work!

H. G. Parry should be better known. I picked up The Magician's Daughter on a whim earlier this year and snagged The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door has soon as I knew it existed. I love her use of language, evocative and creative and the world she has created is fascinating and compelling. Also creepy and scary where necessary.

This book was everything I never knew I needed in a fantasy story: historical-adjacent setting, magical academia, a dash of magic in the government (that really reminded me of Cornelius Fudge liaising with the Muggle Prime Minister in Harry Potter). I was absolutely hooked by the characters and the plot; the ending was devastating in the best way, and everyone got the ending that fit (as sad as it is that Alden and Clover won't ever get a second chance). Definitely going to explore the rest of HG Parry's works!!

In a Nutshell: A character-driven historical fantasy combining vibes of dark academia and faerie magic. Interesting plot, complex characters, well-handled themes. Plenty of magic but need to wait a long while for it. Might seem like YA because of the characters’ ages, but the content and the plot work for adults too. Loses a little bit of steam at times, but overall, a great option for lovers of this genre.

Plot Preview:
1920. “Camford”, UK. Seventeen-year-old Clover is a commoner with no wealth or connections or even magical blood. So as a student at the Camford University of Magical Scholarship, where almost every student comes from rich families with magic in their blood, Clover knows that she must strive her best and learn enough magic to find a cure for her elder brother Matthew, one of the handful of survivors of a faerie attack on the battlefield during the Great War. But as the study of faerie magic has been banned after that incident, Clover’s options are limited.
Clover finds her tribe with Alden – a spoilt rich boy with similar research interests as Clover, and his two friends – Hero (the only other female student at Camford) and Eddie (who loves plants more than anything.) With this trio, Clover learns more about friendship and heartbreak, and yes, even faerie doors. However, as often happens during dangerous pursuits, this friendship too is threatened by an unforeseen event, which creates repercussions even years later.
The story comes to us in Clover’s first-person perspective, written as a flashback from some point in the future.

Bookish Yays:
🍀 Clover: A bit bristly at the start and also naïve almost throughout the 1920 timeline. But also ambitious and determined. Unlike typical “poor outsider” protagonists, she is not afraid to bend the rules. She’s a flawed character, which makes the story a lot more interesting to read in her voice.
🍀 Hero and Eddie, two of Clover’s friends, are excellent secondary characters. Though Eddie gets a relatively muted role, both Hero and he make their presence felt. I liked their individual personalities. Other great characters were Clover’s brother Matthew (I’d love to read a spinoff telling Matthew’s story), and Clover’s mentor Lady Anjali Winter (Indian immigrant, excellently written.)
🍀 Thanks to the main friends’ group being in their late teens, the book might feel a bit YA at times. However, it doesn’t have the most common YA pitfall: a whiny protagonist with loads of inner rambling. All the characters sound and act their age without going too stereotypically teen.
🍀 The story is written as a flashback journal narrative from much in the future, and the author maintains this tone throughout. The writing is interspersed with observations, elucidations and emotions from the older Clover looking back on the past events – a great writing choice.
🍀 Love the setting of alternate England, where the Great War did occur, but also had fae interference. The historical portrayal felt fairly authentic.
🍀 The themes of wealth/class discrimination, gender discrimination, knowledge restriction, anticolonialism, and most of all, the selfishness of humans.
🍀 The magic and the faerie content, though not frequent throughout the book, is still fun to read.
🍀 The writing is truly beautiful, with lyrical descriptions and lovely metaphors.

Bookish Mixed Bags:
🌳 The world-building gave mixed vibes. While a few settings were well-described, the rest of the book felt standard. Some parts reminded me strongly of Babel and Harry Potter, though in a good way.
🌳 The concept of “Camford University”, set up as the third reputed university along with Oxford and Cambridge. (There’s a good reason its name is an amalgamation of the other two.) However, though the book could be called ‘dark academia’ to some extent, the use of Camford is more as a location than as an institution of learning. The professor who’s supposed to be Clover’s mentor is forgotten soon after he is introduced. We hardly get to see any magical classes or teachers or training. The only dominant Camford location is the library. I wish there had been a bit more focus on the training part also to make the location feel essential to the plot.
🌳 While I did love the journal-style storytelling, this also means that there is a lot of foreshadowing. Most of it is fine, but sometimes, the foreshadowing feels too blatant.
🌳 Though the title promises us the ‘scholar’ and the ‘last faerie door’, the story has way more ‘scholar’ than ‘faerie door’. You need a lot of patience at the start because the book takes a long time to get to the faerie parts. Of course, once these come, they are worth the wait.
🌳 The narrative jumps a decade after a point. It takes time to get used to the sudden change in character circumstances. This section is darker than the earlier ones, but has many more twists and surprises.

Bookish Nays:
🍂 Too much secret keeping, mainly but not only by one character. It feels annoyingly repetitive after a point.
🍂 The overall pacing is quite slow, but some parts of the book drag too much, especially in the initial section before *that* summer, and the final face-off, even though it has a lot happening.
🍂 I wasn’t a fan of some of the events towards the end – they felt much over the top and left some unanswered questions.

All in all, while the book could have done better in its pacing and worldbuilding, the story was still interesting enough. The characters worked the best for me, though I see how readers who prefer likeable protagonists might have an issue with Clover.

This is my second H.G. Parry book, after ‘The Magician’s Daughter’ (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5289718593), another standalone historical fantasy. Both books have good characters and are somewhat YA in tone. However, ‘The Magician’s Daughter’ has better magical elements, while ‘The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door’ fares better in terms of plot complexity. I liked both the books, and would love to read more by this author.

Definitely recommended to those who enjoy character-driven historical fantasy. Technically, this is an adult fantasy, but considering the ages of the characters it could easily work for older YA Fantasy readers as well.

3.75 stars. (1920 timeline – 4 stars, second timeline – 3.5 stars.)

My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK and Orbit for providing the DRC of “The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

This book has such an interesting concept and it very much had the vibes of Emily Wilde meets Divine Rivals, both of which I really enjoyed. At first I really liked Clover and admired her determination, she felt like a mature protagonist in a morally grey secret magical society and I was sucked in by the enigmatic air and charm of Alden, a Gatsby-esque golden boy and his friends as much as Clover was. However, the more entangled with Alden Clover became, the more I found her to regress as a character, and began to become frustrated with her. I did find myself start to struggle with this, and ultimately DNF half way through but I think this was because this was a very character driven book with a fairly slow pace. I would lie to pick this up again in the future and give it another go as I think it was a case of the wrong time for me to read rather than the book being bad.

5 of 5 stars
https://lynns-books.com/2024/12/23/review-the-scholar-and-the-last-faerie-door-by-hg-parry/
My Five Word TL:DR Review: This Book is Utterly Delicious

What more can I say. I loved this book. This is one of those books that is simply beautiful. It’s well written, it has so many things going for it. It wants to be savoured but begs to be devoured. It’s magic, it’s fae, it’s dark academia. It has this wisp of A Secret of History, coupled with magical studies, found family and is set during a chaotic period of history where things were changing rapidly.

The story is told by Clover Hill. Clover lives on a farm in the shadow of Pendle Hill but she has ambitions and she’s bright and intelligent. All she needs is a little push and so when her brother is cursed during a battle (WW1) Clover is determined to find the cure. With this in mind, and a little help from others, she gains access to an elite school of magic, shrouded (quite literally) in mist and mystery, this is a place for Family – the upper echelons of society who send their children here to learn magic. As you might imagine, at first Clover doesn’t really blend in very easily until, quite remarkably she’s taken under the wing of the golden boy of the school and his small group of friends. What could possibly go wrong.

Let me tell you the ways in which I loved this book.

Firstly, the writing is so lovely, I found myself reading this in a leisurely way, absorbing the words and not giving a fig how long it was taking to move forward. In fact, I’m sorry it’s over, I really am.

Secondly, the characters. Clover is a great character. She’s real. She’s honest. She recognises that sometimes she does things for selfish purposes, she tries occasionally to kid herself but then she just calls it out for what it is. The secondary characters are really well drawn. They’re all different, with different motivations and they form into this really great unit – until everything goes horribly wrong.

The setting works really well. We have the period feel, WW1 has just ended, it’s a time of change and possibility. Then we have the secret magical world, hidden from most, by the upper classes who believe that magic should be kept for them alone, a belief that has led to the keeping of some very terrible secrets. And, we have the world of the fae, tantalisingly close but locked away (for the most part at least).

And, then, the story. I’m not going to go into any details. I loved it.

In case you can’t tell, I loved this and I’m only here to say good things and spread the love. My one wish – I would love to return to this world, but this feels like a novel that is complete (I hope I’m wrong though). Time to go back and check out this author’s backlist methinks.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

I cannot believe this was my first H. G. Parry book! I absolutely fell in love and was so immersed in the story.

I’ve been reading a lot more historical fantasy recently and this is up there with my favourites, I really enjoyed reading this.

Thank you so much to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the arc. 🫶🏻

Parry has quickly snuck up on me as an autobuy author, as her books go from strength to strength (this is my second five star Parry read this year).

What I really love about all Parry's work is the care with which she crafts her characters. Her latest work isn't a particularly complicated story, but it's brimming with character growth as the main character, Clover, clumsily navigates a world that isn't hers. Clover isn't a perfect character, and this book shines as the reader gets to watch her grow and learn from her mistakes and re-examine past events with the benefit of hindsight.

The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door also comes complete with my favourite kind of dark academia vibes; the kind where the real horrors are the way in which academia has systematically locked out various groups of people. (This time, it's those not fortunate enough to be born to the aristocracy). It's also set at a fascinating point in history, with the characters grappling with the aftereffects of a generation-shaping war (and reader knowing that they will soon hurtle headfirst into another).

This book is an intersection of several currently popular themes, and Parry holds them together wonderfully by focusing the story on what matters most: how characters (people) react to the changing world around them. A fantastic read!

The most joyous read from start to finish and in every which way. I was fully engrossed in the story from page 1 and before I knew it, I was turning the final page. Just brilliant!

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.