An Academy for Liars is a fast-paced, eerie novel of dark academia that fuses elements of horror, the paranormal, romance, and fantasy and leaves an uncomfortable aftertaste. At its center is Lennon Carter, a multiethnic woman in her early twenties with self-destructive tendencies and a history of mental health struggles. As a protagonist, she feels reminiscent of both Catherine House’s Ines Murillo and Ninth House’s Galaxy Stern. At the beginning of the novel, Lennon is engaged to a much older literature professor named Wyatt and living a largely unfulfilling and isolated existence. After a questionable, whirlwind courtship when she was only a freshman at NYU, Lennon dropped out and agreed to follow Wyatt to Denver for his new role at the University of Colorado. 

Lennon is uneasy on the evening of their engagement party. For some time, she’s felt an unshakeable sense of detachment that her wedding preparations haven’t helped abate. She later discovers Wyatt’s infidelity during the party, a betrayal that heightens her sense of panic. She immediately flees their house in Wyatt’s car and finds herself in a mall parking lot. Inexplicably, the phone inside of an old pay phone booth begins to ring. Lennon picks it up. She’s invited to an admissions interview for Drayton College, a school she is certain she’s neither applied to nor heard of. Lennon thinks it’s all an annoying prank and nearly hangs up, but the caller delivers a very personal piece of information that makes her reconsider. Curious and seemingly with nothing more to lose, Lennon drives out to the admissions interview. She passes the unusual interview and entry exam. Within hours of being set to lead an entirely different life with her unfaithful fiancée, Lennon is a new student at Drayton College.

If Drayton’s admissions process is discombobulating, then the school itself is impossible. Drayton is a school for illusionists, built on illusions. It is ostensibly nonexistent, residing in a sort of pocket world within Savannah, Georgia that is unseen by and unknown to outsiders. Drayton’s students study the practice of persuasion, a discipline that enables them to wield staggering influence over objects, animals, the elements, and other people. Like the graduates of Catherine House or the well-known Ivy League in Thomas and Bardugo’s novels, alumni of Drayton often move on to coveted positions of power within politics, business, media, and elsewhere. Lennon is equal parts enthralled and intimidated by this mysterious place and by Dante, the stoic and erudite advisor assigned to guide her in her studies. As Lennon’s studies progress and she finally feels at home among Dante and her classmates, Drayton’s strange yet idyllic veneer starts to slip. Each lesson reveals something more disturbing about the school and Lennon’s abilities.     

An Academy for Liars fits nicely into the dark academia terrain covered by Elisabeth Thomas’s Catherine House, Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House, and Olivie Blake’s The Atlas Six. Henderson’s use of setting and atmosphere is odd, inventive, and mesmerizing. The only things that slightly detract from her worldbuilding are the inconsistencies in the rules for Drayton students’ communication with the outside world. Perhaps Henderson could have forgone one or two scenes with Lennon’s family in favor of further fleshing out and reinforcing the dynamics with her classmates, the people she’s around the majority of the narrative and who are the most invested in Drayton’s fate. The plot is engaging and propulsive, delivering interesting twists and payoffs. While Lennon is occasionally frustrating as a protagonist, her flaws lend her some dimension and most of her actions read believable within the context of the narrative. Her individual character arc and the relationship arc she shares with Dante are both intriguing. With An Academy for Liars, Henderson gives readers a quick and fascinatingly unsettling story that lingers.

LOGLINE: When her life is on the brink of collapse, a young woman named Lennon is recruited by an arcane institution that promises unmatched influence to all of its alumni. Studying under her enigmatic advisor, Lennon unlocks her anomalous powers with devastating consequences.

MOOD: A riveting, standalone dark fantasy with a creepy and hallucinatory atmosphere that reads like Elisabeth Thomas’s Catherine House crossed with Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House.

TITLE: An Academy for Liars

AUTHOR: Alexis Henderson

GENRE: Fiction, Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Paranormal Fiction

PUBLISHER: Ace, an imprint of Penguin Random House

PUB DATE: 17 September 2024

LENGTH: 464 pages