Dark Academia Romance available on Kindle Unlimited

[00:00:00] Welcome back to the show. I am so excited to be back. So today's episode, you're going to talk about some dark academia, high school bully, college bully, a little bit of unalivers, lots of morally gray, heroes. And so this episode was originally aired as part of novel nights, which is our Thursday night live show.

Every Thursday night I meet with my friend Francesca and Victoria, and we chat all things book recommendations. If you want to check out our weekly show, it's available on YouTube and Facebook. It's from 7 p. m. Eastern Standard Time. And then you can watch the replay at any time. So now let's get to the recommendations.

Laura/Victoria: Welcome back to Novel Nights, our weekly live show. We are going to get into some recommendations again.

Laura/Victoria: When you think about Kindle limited, you think about booktog, you think about bully, dark, angsty, just going all the way, so we're doing a lot of it. There's no student teaching here.

Laura/Victoria: It's a lot of it. It's dark, high school bully or college bully or just, Morally great characters. Like [00:01:00] you're like, I don't think this is attractive. These are full of red flags. So if you're in therapy, these are the guys that you just want to stay away from, but you just want to, we'll just enjoy them.

Laura/Victoria: Okay, we're going to start with Zodiac Academy. We're going to start with the book that started it all for me. So this is a fantasy, this is romantasy in some ways, but it's a lighter urban fantasy. Essentially, it's about twins who were sent over to foster care, who were, I don't know, for some reason they were called back to this magical academy in this fairy world.

Laura/Victoria: It turns out that they're heirs to the throne of this whole world that's happening of fairies. And so there you go to the Zodiac Academy, which is basically this weird class, kind of like Harry Potter, but with sex and just. Dragons and everything in between it's a wrong time. Like it's really fun.

Laura/Victoria: It's just addictive. The writing is [00:02:00] not that good, I have to say, but for some reason if you power through the first book and you get through it, you're just gonna be golden. There's 10 books. They're long books, but they're addictive. I literally spent a month reading these books. I'm almost done with the last book, and it's just I just don't want to end.

Laura/Victoria: It's just a fun time. Carolyn Peckham and Suzanne Valenti have books in other areas, in other series, in the same world. So if you want to still stay around with the Zodiac Academy, there's more books around it. This is not reverse harem, if you're, or why choose, which is, in that case, that trope is, we'll have a couple of those.

Laura/Victoria: But essentially, it's one book. One main character has multiple love interests. This doesn't have it. There's some bullying at the beginning, but just the guys get, the guys have to growl. But there, it's a really fun time. It's just it's addictive. So if you're looking for a good escape, Just pick the Zoodiac Academy, they're all books are on Kindle limited.

Laura/Victoria: There's 12 books in the series. There's two novellas [00:03:00] There's one book based from the guy's perspective. And so yeah, just go down to the Zoodiac Academy There's Reddit Threats. If you have questions, if you need moral support, there's a large Facebook group around it So you gotta you gotta community along with just reading this book, this series.

Laura/Victoria: So that's the Zodiac Academy. So then we're going to go to the next one, which is The Ritual by ShantelTessier. So this is another popular book in BookTok and it's extremely dark. So this is Secret Society. So this book should have been dated last week, but I was like, it's not. It's too dark for secret society.

Laura/Victoria: So essentially they're killers. , they go to this college and they are assigned part of their secret side, they're assigned women to be their partners from the last year. They're supposed to be celibate for the first three years of college, and then they go, Oh, well go a while then the fourth year.

Laura/Victoria: And so the main character. Gets [00:04:00] assigned as the female and who happens to be in, in a relationship with another guy and within the same secret society. And this whole scandal is going on. And then somehow he's it's check the trigger warnings because it's just he kidnaps her just as the other plays, the other guys like chasing her.

Laura/Victoria: It's just trigger warnings galore. He kills people for shits and giggles. Like he just. On the lives people. So this book is dark. There's five more books in the series. I feel like there's a new book that came out just recently. So if you're looking for some really dark and see check warnings.

Laura/Victoria: This book is for you. And then there's more books in the series. So that's pretty much where we are. So the next one is Lords of Pain. And this is a reverse Harem or why choose and again, why choose means there's 1 female and there's 2 or 3 or 4 or 5. Or more male [00:05:00] counterparts who are their romantic partners.

Laura/Victoria: So it's a college bully romance. So she knew these guys, they were her bully, and somehow they chose her, and they were acting, essentially the bullying romance idea is that it's like playing when you're a little kid and you're like, this guy didn't like you and just beats you up.

Laura/Victoria: And it's and your mom tells you like, it's because he likes you. It's the same idea. That's the trope. That's what it comes down to now in the grownup. It's he treats you like shit. Oh, he likes you. So it is part of it. It's It is a wrong, good time for, if you're looking for red flags, this is a book to look for.

Laura/Victoria: So Lords of Pain by Angela Lawson and Samantha Rue. Okay, the next book is Hannaford Prep by J. Bree. You can borrow the new bus which has four books. So it's a four book series. It's not a standalone. It's basically you're just like you're gonna go through it.

Laura/Victoria: Essentially the main [00:06:00] character is from the wrong side of the tracks and she gets a scholarship for going to this prep school and she wants to just get out of the situation she was living. So she decides to go to school and everyone made her life a living hell. So there's a couple of guys who make her living hell.

Laura/Victoria: There's the queen bee who makes her living hell. And we're trying to figure out how she can actually go around it. And it turns out she was also involved in the mob at some point. So there's a whole mystery surrounded with it. There's a whole different, drama, just bullying. And then the Queen Bee and her became besties at the end of the book, at the book one.

Laura/Victoria: It's not a spoiler. Then, and then the next few books is about their story about like how they figure out the boys, so this is another why choose romance. The next one is Filthy Rich Boys which is another why choose. It's an, this one's high school why choose and bullying also. So same story, basically.

Laura/Victoria: Boy didn't like [00:07:00] her, boy wants her, he basically acts out, multiple boys acts out, and she basically falls in love with them. So that's Filthy Rich Boys. Then Deviant King is Rina Kent . So, she, this is a, Heron was, She just wanted to be a good student. She just wanted to like, just get out of school and just do what she needs to do.

Laura/Victoria: And Aiden King, the head guy of the school, basically put her eyes on her. And basically he wants her and at the same time he doesn't want her. It's a part of the trilogy, so it's not standalone. It's a bigger world. You can go into Rina Ken's. And you can just be just like Soda Academy. You can spend months just reading all her backlist and you're going to have a good time.

Laura/Victoria: So it's a fun world. They just to go for it. It's set in England. I think this is one of this. There's a couple books you check to turn warnings because there's a lot of non consent and . Dubious consent. So there's a lot of questionable situations, [00:08:00] but you know, if you want some darker stuff, Deviant King and Rena Kent's World will be good for you.

Laura/Victoria: Now we're going to go to Corrupt by Penelope Douglas or Pen Douglas. So this is Devil's Night series. There's four books in the series. They're the books have been traditionally published. So you can buy the actual paperbacks but you can get them on Kindle limited. It's about. Essentially it's a college night where devil's night is perfect for the season, like spooky season.

Laura/Victoria: So essentially, like everyone goes crazy. And so the main character finds the guy who did something he wasn't supposed to, they go to prison and there's revenge against her and they fall in love. What else can you ask for? So, so that's Corrupt there's there's four more books. There's three more books in the series and the novella.

Laura/Victoria: So there's it can give you, this is a perfect October read for you. And the final book is All the Little Lies and by S, j. Silvis. This is [00:09:00] a high school prep. She left the school Five years ago. It's coming back to school and her former best friend is no longer her best friend and he's not her bully.

Laura/Victoria: And so we just get to connect with what happened and how they evolve in the relationship. There's a couple, I think there's three more books in the series. So it's a longer series, but they're probably different couples. So this is, it's interproductive standalones, but that's another world that you can dive into.

Laura/Victoria: So. I gave you worlds that you can spend time with. You can just go binge read a couple of these and you can spend a good time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have to tell you all, I was getting live feedback. So she had a camera and was vlogging when she was reading Zodiac Academy. Live participant, let's say that because I haven't read it, but she would send me voice.

Laura/Victoria: Oh my God. This is [00:10:00] so bad, but it's so good. I don't, I remember reading the first one and I was like, I don't know what to write. And then I was like, I think I had a I felt like this need to was like, just pick Zodiac Academy. I was like, I don't understand why. Cause I have other books to read and these are dedication.

Laura/Victoria: These are long books. They're not like five foot, like a hundred pages. That's like a thousand pages long or 1500 pages long. And it's it reads like fan fiction. It's it's just you just want to go dive into it. And you can just stop, you cannot stop reading. This is what it does.

Laura/Victoria: It just reads like a really good addictive book. book and every book builds upon itself and you just want to be in this world for as long as possible. Do I think some of the books were money drops? Yes, I do. But do I really enjoy them? Yes, I did enjoy them. They were really money drops. I understand because FYI, authors get paid for how many pages were read.

Laura/Victoria: So you notice some of [00:11:00] those kind of limited books are like a thousand pages long. Guess what? They get more money than a 300 pages long book. So yes, it could be a money grab. Listen, I always say books don't have to be like good for you to enjoy them.