Fusing dark fantasy, paranormal fiction, and new adult romance with elements of mystery and psychological suspense, Kamilah Cole’s An Arcane Inheritance takes a humorous and critical look at the college experience and its promise of upward mobility. The novel follows Ellory Morgan, a mature freshman and first-generation Jamaican American immigrant who has grown up with her aunt Carol in Queens, NY and delayed attending college a few years to work. When Warren University, a fictional Ivy League based in Connecticut, offers her admission on a full-ride Godwin Scholarship, she views it as an opportunity to relieve her financial burdens and manage the twin pressures of her distant parents’ expectations and the stress of caregiving for her aunt, whose chronic health issues have required expensive hospital stays and medications. Ellory just has to repress her foolish dreams of being a journalist and commit herself to the competitive political science major that will prepare her for the much more pragmatic and lucrative option of law school.   

Her main competition, and indeed the main secondary presence in a refreshingly diverse cast of characters, is upperclassman Hudson Graves, a biracial legacy student whose family’s name is emblazoned on one of the university’s libraries. Hudson is an arrogant, cold, and quarrelsome foil to Ellory who simultaneously needles and compels her. Despite their different years and abundant antagonism, Ellory and Hudson seem to be inexplicably (and to their friends, annoyingly) drawn to one another. Indeed, their connection is so eerily strong at times that Ellory is struck by a sense of déjà vu during their interactions. When odd and implausibly magical things start happening around campus, Ellory falls down an investigative rabbit hole and turns to Hudson to help her unearth the buried secrets of Warren University’s history.

Cole utilizes humor to such great effect from the very start of the novel. The opening scene in which Ellory struggles through studying her constitutional law textbook in the Graves Library and counts the number of other students on the verge or in the middle of existential crises is one of the funniest distillations of being in college and grad school. Some of the darker aspects of the narrative are leavened with well-placed comedy. 

As the narrative veers further into its fantasy and mystery strains, it plays on time, memory, and Ellory’s perception of her reality in interesting ways. However, when the story lapses into dull moments, it becomes difficult to tell whether the inconsistencies in pacing really serve the disorientation that Ellory is supposed to feel or simply undermine Cole’s intentions. The pacing tends to be too slow to sustain the sense of dramatic tension and suspense set up at the start.

While the humor and verisimilitude are strong in the book, the in-world magic system is less so. Realism that would be expected in a new adult contemporary fiction novel seems to win out over the fantasy promised by the book’s premise. The magic system feels a bit hazily conceived and almost nonexistent within the narrative. For much of the novel, there’s more telling than showing of the magic that’s meant to be a crucial source of conflict that feeds the mystery and thriller elements. Not enough detail is provided as to what type or variations of magic exist, its origins, and how it actually works within the book’s fictional world. 

Ellory and Hudson’s rivalry and grudging alliance is a more interesting trajectory than the romance that the novel threatens with inevitability. While the fractious banter between Ellory and Hudson is entertaining, their dynamic often reads as more intellectual and potentially platonic in its dimension than it does romantic.

The ultimate reveal still lands well and does what it can to mitigate these issues and the novel ends in a gratifying place.

MOOD: Accompanying the heroine through the travails of the first year of college, uncertain whether you’re stuck in a magical time loop or witnessing her gradual stress-induced breakdown. Either way, a humorous, keenly observed, narrative ride sprinkled with dark fantasy, romance, and mystery. A slow buildup pays off in a surreal, yet satisfying reveal.

LOGLINE: A cash-strapped, first-generation Caribbean undergrad thinks the obscure full-ride scholarship she’s offered with her admission to Ivy League Warren University is her second chance at securing her future, but soon reconsiders when strange things occur on campus and she can’t shake the feeling that she’s reliving the same events. As she searches for answers with her surly academic rival, she uncovers Warren University’s dark and supernatural past and the deadly secret society at its core.

TITLE: An Arcane Inheritance

AUTHOR: Kamilah Cole

GENRE: Fantasy, New Adult, Dark Fantasy, Dark Academia, Mystery, Romance, Suspense

PUB DATE: 30 December 2025

PUBLISHER: Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks

LENGTH: 432 pages hardcover (595 pages ebook edition)