Nocticadia by Keri Lake (2023)
A dark, atmospheric tale of deadly secrets and forbidden love. 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. Nocticadia is a standalone dark academia gothic romance.
