Book Review: Nocticadia by Keri Lake

Read all my book reviews here. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter for more book recommendations!

Some books set a mood. Nocticadia moves into one and locks the door behind you. Keri Lake’s gothic dark academia romance is moody in the best possible way — very dark, very committed, all island fog and candlelit menace, right down to the Latin stamped on the cover: mortui vivos docent. The dead teach the living. I was pretty impressed by this one.

The spoiler-free setup: after watching her mother succumb to a mysterious illness, Lilia Vespertine earns her way into Dracadia University, a prestigious institution on a remote island off the coast of Maine, the kind of place that comes pre-loaded with rumors of hauntings and a long institutional memory for secrets. She wants a cure. The island has its own plans, including a forbidden thread I will absolutely not spoil for you.

What I Loved About Nocticadia by Keri Lake

The mood, first and always. Gothic is easy to gesture at and brutally hard to sustain, and Lake sustains it across an entire novel without blinking — this is romantasy shelved closer to horror than to fairy tale, and it owns that placement. The plot is properly twisty too, stacking reveals in ways that kept genuinely surprising me. Dark academia lives and dies on texture, and Dracadia has texture to spare. If your ideal read involves a sinister university, secrets under the floorboards, and a love interest you should not trust, you’re home.

What I Didn’t Love About Nocticadia

Two honest complaints. The twisty plot occasionally gets too twisty, to the point where I had to flip back and re-check what I actually knew before the next reversal hit. And the Kindle edition I read had enough little typos and errors that they kept tugging me out of the story. I said it in my Quicksilver review and I’ll keep saying it: indie romantasy deserves proofreading as fierce as its fandoms. The storytelling here survives the errors. It just deserved cleaner polish.

Final Thoughts on Nocticadia

Super enjoyable, deeply moody, and definitely worth the read — three stars on the strength of the copyediting, not the story. Put it on the fall TBR and save it for the first foggy night.

My final score: 3 out of 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Do I recommend this book? 👍 Yes — gothic dark academia fans, this is your October read.

🔥 A Deadly Trials Romantasy on Kindle Unlimited: The Ash Trials

Saffron Vale wakes in a ruined wedding dress, locked in a prison for the kingdom’s deadliest criminals — with no memory of who she is.

To survive the brutal Ash Trials, she must outlast shifters, spellcasters, and something even more dangerous: the truth about herself. Her only allies? A traitorous commander from her past and an assassin who swears she’s the real monster here.

The truth could save her — or destroy everything.

Get the book now on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited: