The story opens on Laura Sheridan, a poetry ingenue at a private, all-girl’s boarding school. She meets the elegant Professor De La Fontaine, as well as her biggest rival in class: a seductive and outspoken young woman named Carmilla. Laura starts vying with Carmilla for De Lafontaine’s praise, but while completing schoolwork and working on her poetry, she eventually realises there is an unnatural bond between the two women. De Lafontaine is a vampire who feeds on Carmilla and keeps her as her human companion, until Laura irrevocably comes between them.

An Education in Malice is inspired by Sheridan La Fanu’s iconic novella Carmilla, but apart from reappropriating the names, S T Gibson completely rewrites the story. The new setting of the 60’s boarding school is a fantastic conduit for the author to express her love of literature and poetry, name-dropping John Donne, Faust, Rabelais, Milton and others. Chunks of the book are dedicated to exploring classics, but you can still enjoy Malice with a limited knowledge of the genre.

The relationship between the three women is at the forefront, and the story does not romanticise the uncomfortable power dynamics between teacher and student, which I appreciated. What did surprise me was how intense this book was, as Laura and Carmilla explore their queer sexualities in numerous spicy scenes, while the vampire aspect of the plot is a little overlooked.

Considering the pantheon of vampire literature, I think this was a good decision. It left us with a highly enjoyable, well-written, dark-academia coded book that was hard to put down.

Reviewed by Rachel Denham-White

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Saint is a literary agent, author, and village wise woman in training. A graduate of the creative writing program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and the theological studies program at Princeton Seminary, she currently lives in Boston with her partner, spoiled Persian cat, and vintage blazer collection.

Visit S T Gibson’s website