I was not a fan of S.T. Gibson’s first novel A Dowry of Blood mostly because I do not find the subject matter - vampires - to be particularly romantic or attractive. An Education in Malice also has vampires in it, but it is set in an all girls college in the 1960s and at least in the first half of the novel we follow two human girls.
Carmilla and Laura come from totally different backgrounds and seem to be polar opposites of each other. But as we know, opposites attract. They start off as rivals in an exclusive poetry class, but soon find themselves drawn to each other. Gibson’s writing is very beautiful and I do enjoy her prose. However, even though I did like this novel better than her debut, it was not compulsively readable. I could only read a few pages at a time. It did not pull me in and I almost forced myself to pick it up each night. In the end I did end up giving it 4 out of 5 stars. I liked the dark academia vibes, and in particular the New England college setting. I also liked the characters and the romance.
I would love to see this author stray away from the vampiric subject matter and explore some other fantasy worlds. I also think she should do more work on secondary characters. In the first two books, we spend majority of our time with the main characters and rarely see much of the surrounding world.
An e-ARC was provided by NetGalley.com
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