When Emma Curran wins a prestigious fellowship at her university, she is thrust into the glittering world of the elite. There, she meets and falls for Jasper Balfour, the charismatic leader of a secret society whose rituals hide something far darker beneath their privilege. When the group stages a sinister “fox hunt” where women are hunted for sport, Emma is forced to run for her life and is pulled into a hidden, magical realm. Transformed into something no longer fully human, she must embrace her newfound power to survive and challenge the forces that trapped her.
This book was fine. I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, but it just didn’t grab me. The premise is intriguing, but the execution felt uneven, like two separate stories that never fully come together, and neither one is as developed as it could be.
The first half, set at the university, goes deep on the dark academia vibes: we get secret societies, we get wealthy students, and we get a naive protagonist slowly being drawn into something dangerous. Watching Emma try to fit into Jasper’s world was a bit cliché, but it worked well enough, though it did feel like we were just waiting for the inevitable fallout.
Then the story shifts into the Night City, a magical realm hidden beneath the college. Suddenly, we have fox maidens, magical librarians, and a mysterious messenger named Robin, who based on description alone, seems suspiciously like Robin Hood (and honestly, I wanted way more of him. He was easily the most interesting character).
When the narrative shifts back to the university, it becomes a revenge story, but by that point, Emma’s actions feel inconsistent with who she was earlier, and the main villain seems to come out of nowhere. Their motivations and behavior don’t quite line up with what we’ve seen before, which makes the final pages feel lacking rather than satisfying.
There are also quite a few plot threads that are introduced and then dropped, like what happened to Imogen, the aftermath of Emma burning down the house, and even the public exposure of the society’s crimes, all of which feel like they should have bigger consequences than they ultimately do.
Overall, this book is full of interesting ideas, but they never fully come together. It’s not a bad read, but it left me wishing it had gone deeper and committed more fully to the plot.
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