The Uncomfortable Lightness of Dark Academia

I first learned about Zoe B. Wallbrook’s debut novel, History Lessons, from a promotional email a few weeks after it came out. Its blurb’s opening line blew my mind a little: “As a newly minted junior professor, Daphne Ouverture spends her days giving lectures on French colonialism, working on her academic book, and going on atrocious dates.” When her “superstar” colleague Sam Taylor is found dead in the fictional college town of Calliope, Daphne, a Harrison University history professor, gets drawn into the murder investigation. She eventually cracks the case while uncovering more and more of Sam’s—and the university’s—secrets and lies.