UNHALLOWED HALLS

A misfit in search of belonging finds dangerous secrets in a secluded boarding school.

When brainy-but-underperforming Floridian teen Page Whittaker is offered a full scholarship to exclusive Agathion, an isolated haven for troubled posh kids in the Scottish moors, it’s a dream come true. A voracious reader—Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, the Brontës—Page finds the idea of the school romantic and its mind-over-body philosophy just what she needs after the mysterious violent incident that led to her leaving her last school and girlfriend. Instead of Page’s beloved and relatively modern classics, ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and mythology are the anchor of the school’s program. Something strange is going on with the magisters in charge and also with the secretive friend group Page longs to join, comprising Cyrus, the son of a prince, who’s “absurdly handsome” with his curly dark hair and golden brown skin; witchy Oak, cued genderqueer, who’s Page’s Scottish love interest; Australian Korean Ren; blond Gideon, who’s Ren’s trans boyfriend; and glamorous Latina-coded nepo baby Lacey. They don’t trust the magisters—or Page; they suspect the magisters brought her in to spy on them. Wilkinson lavishly renders the setting through descriptive prose that revels in the school’s decaying decadence. In constantly rising action that builds to increasingly fantastical and dramatic reveals, Page uncovers impossible magics, deep-rooted conspiracies, and lethal stakes. The world-breaking, bittersweet climax comes at a high cost. Page presents white and has endometriosis.

Moody, gripping dark academia steeped in magic.