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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | Really Liked It! Highly Recommend.
If you like dark academia with a deadly mystery haunting the halls of a gothic school and a forbidden romance between student and professor, Nocticadia by Keri Lake might be exactly what you are looking for.
Summary:
Mortui vivos docent.
The dead teach the living.
After watching my mother succumb to a mysterious illness, I promised myself two things. I’d find the cure for what ravaged her. And leave the godforsaken city where she abandoned me.
Four years later, I receive an acceptance letter from Dracadia University, one of the oldest, most prestigious schools in the country. Nestled on a secluded island off the coast of Maine, it’s rumored to be haunted by the souls of the mental patients exiled there centuries before. Those whose bones are said to make up the island’s white sandy shores.
And restless ghosts aren’t even its most daunting peculiarity.
Devryck Bramwell, known on campus as Doctor Death, is a brilliant pathologist in charge of the midnight lab. He’s also my devastatingly handsome professor, who seems to loathe tenacious first-years, like me. Except, his dark and enigmatic gaze tells me all the ways he’d devour me if given the chance, and his stolen kisses burn my lips with forbidden jealousy.
I crave his authority.
He aches for redemption.
Together, we’re toxic. Delicious fodder for the prying eyes hellbent on exhuming the rotted skeletons of our pasts.
For the dead have much to teach, and it’s only a matter of time before Dracadia’s most depraved secret is resurrected.
📖 What’s Inside:
- Mystery illness 😷
- Academic setting
- Dual-POV
- On-page intimacy 🔴
- Student/teacher romance
- 🩸Blood and gore
- Explicit language
- Morally grey MMC
✨ Vibes:
The dark and spooky vibes are immaculate in this one.
💭 My Thoughts:
Sometimes I start like a dozen books at once (okay, three) and see which one grabs me first. This one definitely tickled my fancy most. From the prologue, it nailed that perfect spooky vibe I was craving, dark academia halls, gothic mystery, and that creeping sense of dread you get in scary movies. Totally haunting and totally perfect to kick off spooky season!
Now, fair warning: there are some gross moments (I accidentally discovered how often I snack while reading… had to stop mid-bite more than once 🤢). Around the 70% mark, the pace slowed down for all the smut, but honestly? It was hot and felt earned after such a torturous slow burn.
And then—WOW. The last 20% is absolutely insane. Jaw-on-the-floor, can’t-process-what-I-just-read insane. Super dark twists, immaculate reveals, and an epilogue that hit just right. For a standalone, this book packed in the mystery, romance, horror, and emotional payoff in such a satisfying way. I rarely finish a standalone feeling this full, but Nocticadia nailed it.
Should you add Nocticadia to your TBR?
If you can handle the list of trigger warnings and enjoy a spooky, haunting mystery with a forbidden age-gap romance, then yes—put this book at the top of your fall TBR. It’s the perfect atmospheric, creepy, slow-burn story to get you in the mood for spooky season.
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