Nocticadia by Keri Lake

 

Published by Bloom Books on November 14^th, 2025

600 pages

I read the paperback version

Back Cover

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.

Perfect for fans of Kaylie Smith, Briar Boleyn, and Rina Kent, Nocticadia is a standalone dark academia gothic romance.

My review

 I wasn’t a huge fan of Dark Romance until lately, if I want to be honest. I’m in the mood for watching horror movies and reading that genre for personal reasons. I have to thank Cassy Vincent for giving me the motivation to renew with it. As you can guess by consulting the back cover, Devryck Bramwell is super controlling, but it’s work with the story. As much I would stay away from that type of guy in real life, it makes me realize some patterns humans can have when it comes to love.

I will recommend if you accept the age gap and the teacher-student relationship. Fortunately, they’re both adults, however Lilia is only 20 and we don’t know how old the professor is. It can’t be worse than Bella and Edward, but you get the idea.

You might find some plot that you usually see in Dark Romance. Lilia doesn’t have a good life. Her mom is death and the man who is taking care of her has a strange relation with someone else that cause a lot of problems. Her sister is also studying at a prestigious school because she can’t go to a normal one.

It’s the first novel by that author and I wouldn’t discover her if it wasn’t of the book club at Evermore. It’s almost a 600 pages story, and it might not fit to everyone, but I liked most of it.

Excerpts

“The sky…turned to blackness. All of them burned.” (p.4)

In truth, I hated cleaning the bathrooms, the patient rooms, the offices, but I suspected it was the closest I’d ever get to working in an actual hospital. My dream of medical research seemed to fade every day as my body grew weary of life. (p.14)

“Manners are a foreign language to assholes,” I blurted before I could stop myself. (p.24)  

I shrugged, mildly frustrated at the way she’s nosed herself into my business. We’d had a neighbour like her back in Covington. An older woman who’d constantly inquired about my mother’s state of health and whether her illness could pass through the apartment vents. (p.132)

He’s an asshole, the voice inside my head argued back. Don’t put too much into it. (p.140)

After my mother’s death, I’d gained certain freedoms that I hadn’t had growing up, mostly of necessity. Conner had needed help with the rent, so I’d had to get a job, and going to school meant working late at night. It was a scarier brand of freedom. One, I didn’t care to exert, but again necessary. (p.157)

I’d touched myself before, but only a couple times and never outside piles of blankets and pillows. I’d always been too nervous of Conner walking in on me, so the sessions had always been quick and rarely ever satisfying. (p.192)

“You shouldn’t knock romance, Professor. It happens that love is biologically important to human beings. It reduces blood pressure and depression and improves sleep.” (p.346)

Sex had become easier, more thrilling, and I found myself far more in tune with my body than I’ve before. He taught me things I never knew about myself, unlocking the dark fantasies tucked deep inside my head that I’d always feared were some strange anomaly. (p.465)