Growing up in a small college town, with a dad who was a college professor and chair of his department, I thought the dark side of academia meant a proliferation of suddenly "dead" relatives at exam time, cutthroat department politics and sneaking into fraternity parties. Boy, was I wrong—here’s a book list that explores those academic problems of dark magic, svengali professors, mentally disturbed students, psychotic cliques and vanishing friends. 

The list is a mix of Adult and Young Adult books. The Adult books would be suitable for older teen readers. 

All of these books are currently available remotely as e-books and/or audiobooks.

 

 

 

Adult

The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (Alex Stern #1)

Alex Stern, lone survivor of an unsolved horrific, multiple homicide is mysteriously offered a full ride scholarship to Yale University. What’s the catch and why her? Alex soon learns she must help keep an eye on the occult activities of the school’s exclusive secret societies. But the activities in their “tombs” are more sinister and more extraordinary than Alex could ever conceive. When the one of the only people she can trust, her mentor Darlington, disappears. Alex is truly alone and surrounded by vipers who see her more as a hindrance than a help. 

 

 

 

The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason

A snowy Easter weekend on the Princeton campus and two friends, Tom and Paul, are close to solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a Renaissance text that has baffled scholars for centuries. Unlocking its secrets is the key to both their personal and professional futures. Stakes are further raised when a fellow researcher is murdered. Turns out the manuscript is not simply a story of faith, eroticism and pedantry, but a bizarre, coded mathematical maze. At least one person has been killed for knowing too much. And they know even more.

 

 

 

Black Chalk  by Christopher Yates

What started as a silly game of consequences, forfeits and dares between six close friends during their first year at Oxford University, evolved into something more vicious and humiliating with higher stakes that ended in tragedy. Now, fourteen years later, the remaining players are back for the final round. When it comes to secrets, who knows you better than your friends? Partly inspired by the author’s own time at Oxford. 

 

 

 

 

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

A modern classic set at a small Vermont college about the hold a charismatic classics professor has over a group of clever, eccentric misfits. He encourages them to live outside the normal boundaries of morality and discover a way of thinking and truly living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their fellow students. In their rush to impress their professor and exhilarated by their exclusivity, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods - one of which ends with tragic results, 

 

 

 

 

Shadow of the Lions by Christopher Swann

Set at Blackburne, a prestigious prep school in Virginia, and Mattias Glass’s best friend Fritz has vanished without a trace after an argument during their senior year. Ten years later, Mattias is still haunted by the lack of answers of what happened to his friend. He takes a job as an English teacher at his alma mater. In his search for truth, he stumbles into a web of surveillance, secrets and lies and discovers that the school he loves and that gave him a future hides a troubled underbelly.

 

 

 

If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio

A decade ago, Oliver Marks was one of seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of fierce ambition and cutthroat competition. In this theatrical, secluded world, they played the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingénue, extras. But in their fourth and final year, good-natured rivalries turned ugly, and on opening night real violence invaded their world of make-believe. Now, Oliver is being released from prison and the detective who put him there wants the truth and Oliver is ready to tell it. 

 

 

 

All These Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth

Seventeen years after her mother disappeared without a trace, Charlie is still struggling with her family’s legacy but she’s determined to let go of the past. She throws herself into life at Knollwood, the prestigious boarding school she attends and soon gets accepted into the school’s “It” crowd. Tapped to join a secret society, Charlie must play The Game, a semester-long,high-stakes scavenger hunt that could jeopardize everything she’s worked for and that forces her to question everything she knows about her present and her past.

 

 

 

The Secret Place by Tana French (Dublin Murder Squad, bk 5)

A year ago, a popular boy from a neighboring boys boarding school died on the grounds of St Kilda’s, a girls boarding school in Dublin’s suburbs. With the case gone cold, Detective Stephen Moran gets a clue when 16 year old Holly Mackey comes into the station with a mysterious photo of the boy she found on a St. Kilda's bulletin board. Teamed up with another detective, Antoinette Conway, Moran enters a world of close-knit groups of friends, rival cliques, and the tangle of relationships that bound them all to the murdered boy. 

 

 

 

The Magicians by Lev Grossman (The Magicians #1)

An instant classic of modern fantasy, it’s the story of Quentin Coldwater, a high school math genius and loner who is obsessed with a children's fantasy series set in the land of Fillory. It comes as a complete surprise when he is admitted into an elite, secret college of magic. It would seem that all his dreams have come true. But his newfound powers and hedonistic life come with a dark legacy and Fillory, the land of his childhood fantasies, may be filled with secrets more dangerous than he could have ever imagined. 

 

 

 

 

Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood

Bookish and lonely, Oscar Lowe’s whole life changes when he follows the haunting sound of an organ into the chapel of Kings College, Cambridge. There he meets beautiful, medical student Iris Bellwether and her troubled older brother Eden. At first seduced into their life of wealth and intellectual curiosity, Oscar begins to question everything when Eden convinces Iris and her close-knit group of friends to participate in a series of disturbing experiments.

 

 

 

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (All Souls #1)

In this first book of an incredibly popular series, Oxford scholar and reluctant witch, Diana Bishop, discovers a long-lost enchanted manuscript Ashmole 782 hidden deep in Oxford’s Bodleian Library and inadvertantly sets off an entire underworld of fantastic creatures, daemons, vampires, witches and werewolves, after her. With few allies, she must trust the mysterious and handsome vampire and Oxford scientist Matthew Clermont - who has his own motives for helping her. 

Young Adult

S.T.A.G.S by M. A. Bennett

Greer starts at her new boarding school in the Scottish Highlands, St. Aidens the Great, as a scholarship student with high hopes. Reality sets in when she discovers that she's either completely ignored by everyone or merciciously mocked by the school’s ruling clique known as the Medievals. Which is why she’s surprised to get an invitation from their unofficial leader, Henry de Waincourt for a weekend of “huntin, fishin & shootin”. As the weekend unfolds, it becomes apparent that beyond the luxurious trappings, predators are lurking, and they're out for blood.

 

 

 

People Like Us by Dana Mele

At Bates Academy, Kay Donovan’s past skeletons are firmly in the closet and she has reinvented herself. She’s a soccer star with a circle of friends that are effortlessly popular and sought after for their beauty and wit. But when a girl’s body is found Kay’s carefully crafted reality begins to shatter. The dead girl has left Kay a coded scavenger hunt to follow which begins to implicate suspect after suspect until Kay herself is in the crosshairs of a murder investigation.  

 

 

 

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro (Charlotte Holmes #1)

Charlotte and Jamie are descendants of their infamous detective relatives Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. When they both end up at the same American boarding school, intense scholar Charlotte  and sporty Jamie vow to leave each other alone. However, when a student they both have a history with dies under suspicious circumstances, they are forced to work together to solve the case and clear their names. 

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Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!