Name: Nocticadia
Series: Stand-Alone
Author: Keri Lake
Publisher: Self-Published
Format: Kindle (through Kindle Unlimited)
Genres: Adult, Dark Academia, Gothic, Romance, Contemporary Fantasy
Noted Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Forced Proximity, Forbidden Romance, Touch her and you die
Steam or Spice: Spicey!
Rating:
Synopsis: Goodreads
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.
Review:
Where do I begin with this one? Nocticadia, alongside The Shepherd King duology, is making me crave more Gothic books! And the Dark Academia?! Give me more, please and thank you! I don’t know what Keri Lake put into her book, but I adored it. The banter and tension? Excellent. The spice? Top notch. The plot? Interesting as heck! The characters? Brilliant – there was actual character growth in a stand-alone!
Nocticadia follows two characters – one whose mother was killed by a parasite (and no one believes her) and one who studys that same parasite. Oh and these two find themselves in a teacher/student romance that is deliciously forbidden! This gothic, dark academia, contemporary fantasy, romance has jumped right up there, demanding to be in my top 10 books read this year! And now I will shout from the rooftop that you should also read Nocticadia if you haven’t already (since I’m pretty late to the Keri Lake party!). It was genuinely brilliant…
The writing was so bloody convincing (remember at the core of this story is a fictional parasite that shares the books name) that I was googling the parasites that Keri Lake mentioned to see if they were real or made up by her (this was an immediate regret!!). Her own made up parasite was that convincing that the others she referenced I had to check too! I did realise after the fact that at the start of the book Keri Lake specifically mentions that HER parasite is fake… putting 2 and 2 together would have told me the rest would therefore be real.
I really enjoyed Lilia’s character! She had dealt with so much shit in such a short space of time, what with her mother being sick and ultimately dying, and her sister being unable to deal with it, not to mention the rather shitty male figures that were in her life. Being in her head (as one of the POVs was hers) could have easily been annoying or lacking in much else other than self doubt… and yet Lilia was a strong character! I enjoyed her both pre Doctor Death and post Doctor Death!
Speaking of Doctor Death, Professor Devryk Bramwell is delicious- have I mentioned this already? I loved his attitude, attention to detail (both his work and to Lilia) as well as the mouth on this man! At first I was concerned that his obsession was boardline bad… but I was very quickly proven wrong and loved it.
I absolute ate up the forbidden romance, some of the scenes had me giggling and kicking my feet! Internally of course… because I’m a practiced master at this point of hiding the fact I’m reading any kind of spice… But it was just that good! I found Lilia and Devryk to be a great time. I loved their back and forth and the obsessive way Professor Devryk looked at and loved Lilia worked in this novel! (Do I want this kind of obsession from my real life fiance? No. But I do love it in a fictional man!).
So yes there was spice (and the good spice!) but there was also a plot! I was so invested in Lilia’s interest and investment into learning about this parasite to figure out a way to cure it. Not only that, but I was beyond hooked on Devryk’s story! The way in which we were given his back story was excellent and again, I ate it up. I couldn’t stop reading. The mystery ‘who did it’ element behind the plot was great as well, and honestly when I thought I had solved it, it turned out I hadn’t. Because Keri Lake, it would seem, is just THAT good! In a stand alone novel she took me on a journey and I loved it.
I’m ready to begin my Keri Lake era! Massive thanks to BookTok for putting me onto Nocticadia! I’m still thinking about this book even now, over a week later! I’m not sure what piece of her work I’ll pick up next, but Nocticadia was a great start!
“The wealthy possess an insatiable appetite for the rare and priceless. They stare because you’re the only thing worth staring at.”
Reading With Tyler 
Leave a comment