Title: An Education in Malice
Author: S.T. Gibson
Publisher: Redhook
Length: 346 Pages
Category: Dark Fantasy, Historical
Rating: 3.5 Stars
At a Glance: An Education in Malice is not meant to be light on drama. It foments darkness, steeps in a soup of its own secrets, complicates itself with a fixation on a decades-long separation between a vampire and her maker which devolves into manipulation-by-murder. While I didn’t love it as much as its predecessor, A Dowry of Blood, there’s no doubt Gibson’s has an immense talent for setting the tone and mood of a story and feeds my addiction for the dark tales.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua’s College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold.
On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful and enigmatic Carmilla. Together, they are drawn into the confidence of their demanding poetry professor, De Lafontaine, who holds her own dark obsession with Carmilla.
But as their rivalry blossoms into something far more delicious, Laura must confront her own strange hungers. Tangled in a sinister game of politics, bloodthirsty professors and magic, Laura and Carmilla must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice in their ruthless pursuit of knowledge.
Review: “What is more lovely, after all, than a monster undone with want?” ~ S.T. Gibson, A Dowry of Blood
An Education in Malice is not meant to be light on drama. It foments darkness, steeps in a soup of its own secrets, complicates itself with a fixation on a decades-long separation between a vampire and her maker which devolves into manipulation-by-murder. This story is composed of obsession, possession, avarice, and hunger at St. Perpetua’s Women’s College, and the focus on dark academia serves the story and setting well.
Laura is the young, promising poet, a freshman who is honored with a spot in Ms. De Lafontaine’s class, an immense honor typically only bestowed upon senior students. Laura is quiet and unassuming in contrast to the more worldly Carmilla, who is De Lafontaine’s pet pupil—and something more—until Laura threatens Carmilla’s status with help from the teacher who pits the girls against each other while also forcing them together in private to compete for De Lafontaine’s attention and praise.
The relationship that exists between De Lafontaine and Carmilla would be called predatory and inappropriate in any other context, that is to say a world without vampires. This doesn’t excuse or minimize the imbalance of power dynamic between teacher and student, of course. It does take on a different tone, however, when coupled with De Lafontaine’s ennui, mercurial moods, and apparent loneliness when paired with Carmilla’s own predatory pursuit of the teacher. De Lafontaine’s very nature predisposes her to keep Carmilla near in an addictive way. Thus, by virtue of Laura’s growing attraction to her adversary-turned-love interest, Carmilla, it means De Lafontaine collects Laura as well, even if she does so reluctantly.
As Bram Stoker’s Dracula inspired S.T. Gibson’s exquisite A Dowry of Blood, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla inspired An Education in Malice. Carmilla, in fact, inspired Stoker to pen Dracula. With the appearance of a significant character from A Dowry of Blood, Gibson’s own vampire lore seems to have come full circle.
While I didn’t love this book as much as its predecessor, there’s no doubt Gibson’s has an immense talent for setting the tone and mood of a story and feeds my addiction for the dark tales. The dual first person, from Laura’s and Carmilla’s POVs, wasn’t always distinct enough in voice to tell them apart. And, in the end, I did wonder if they were the protagonists, or if that honor went to Ms. De Lafontaine while her students merely served as a vehicle to tell the vampire teacher’s story. When all was said and done, I would’ve loved more from De Lafontaine’s point of view, but overall, An Education in Malice entertains.
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