He could toss me out the window, and in this madness, I’d crawl right back to him, broken legs and all.

In this professor/student, forbidden love, gay vampires, dark academia story…

Do I need to say more or did that convince you? Lmao

It’s futile trying to connect when you’re forced to hide major parts of yourself.

This book is set in the late 80s when it was hard for LGBTQ+ people like Johnathan to exist, to live happy, open lives (still hard now in places, don't forget that). His previous relationship went horribly wrong but now he’s at college (well, his second year) and he’s, um, moving on. But not really, he’s still haunted by dreams of his first love until some dreamy scary wolves come and save him (this makes sense, right?).

He wants me to see him? Oh, Dacian, how could I possibly see anyone else?

Enter Professor Bathory, mysterious, dark-clothing-wearing, gothic loving, and much to Johnanthan’s annoyance, Johanthan-hating?

And so begins the story of how Johnathan starts working in the collections library (think rare books, we stan) and looking for a book thief. But also, there are people going missing and others turning up dead.

I dunno how the fuck to describe this book. None of that made sense lmao

That was when I learned that people pick their own versions of history to ensure they aren’t blamed for the outcome.

It was dark. It was spooky. It was swoony.

“Don’t ever underestimate human stupidity, Jonathan."

I was pretty invested for the first 50% and then I realized that Johnathan was an idiot.

Honestly, it ended up ruining the book for me, it was a solid 4.25 stars until I realized that I actually didn’t like the main character lmao. I kept forgetting that he wasn’t like 16 years old, but 20ish, since he read so young, and the same for Dacian, who’s centuries old, but kinda still a child?? Please help.

“But you still expect him to make good, morally correct choices even though he is not a good person?”

Anyway, the mystery was no mystery at all, except to Johnathan, and the bad guys were comically bad, re. over the top. Despite the lower rating, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this book, so don’t discount it, I just didn’t love it.

Thank you to Coloured Pages Book Tours and the author for this eARC and finished physical copy!!