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.

my thoughts:

Before picking up Nocticadia, it is highly recommended to check for content and trigger warnings.

Nocticadia was my first experience with a Keri Lake novel. While I didn’t absolutely love it, I found myself intrigued enough by her style to want to explore more of her work. The prose is beautifully crafted, the setting is profoundly atmospheric, and the romantic elements are undeniably steamy. However, the book is not without its flaws.

The novel’s pacing was a significant issue for me. The beginning felt slow, and this dragged-out feeling persisted through a substantial portion of the story. When an author chooses to write a book spanning 682 pages, there’s an expectation to captivate the reader consistently from start to finish—unfortunately, Nocticadia didn’t quite achieve that.

The plot often felt scattered and disjointed, with various threads only truly converging in the final act. At times, it seemed like there was too much happening at once, while at other moments, the narrative momentum stalled entirely. Additionally, certain elements of the story were quite predictable. Without giving away spoilers, one of the major “twists” was something I anticipated very early on.

On a positive note, the dark academia and gothic vibes were executed perfectly. There were genuinely creepy moments where I found it difficult to distinguish between reality and the protagonist Lilia’s potential imaginings. A strong warning to readers: there are some thoroughly disturbing and graphically disgusting scenes involving scientific experiments and parasites. This book is certainly not for the faint of heart.

The scientific aspects of the plot were confusing, which might be a personal issue (I’ve never had a strong aptitude for science), but it repeatedly pulled me out of the story. Struggling to understand these parts significantly diminished my overall enjoyment.

While the romantic spice was well-written and hot, it wasn’t as kinky as I had expected based on the setup. The male lead, Devryck, implies early on that he enjoys a rougher dynamic and suggests he won’t “go easy” on Lilia, but the actual scenes between them felt surprisingly tame compared to this implication. This discrepancy was a bit disappointing.

Overall, Nocticadia showed a lot of promise but fell short of fully delivering. I’m generally hesitant to recommend any book over 300 pages unless it’s truly exceptional, and at over 600 pages, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend this one. If you’re seeking a dark romance with gothic, academic vibes, there are likely other books that would be a better and more satisfying use of your reading time.