I’ll Make a Spectacle of You

Iker puts a fresh spin on dark academia in their exciting if uneven debut. Zora Robinson arrives at Bricksbury—the oldest HBCU in America—with a few goals: finish her thesis on Black spiritual history, get her graduate degree in Appalachian Studies, and put her poor relationships with her sister and family out of her mind. This last aim is complicated by the fact that her sister, Jasmine, teaches on campus, but things initially go well: her thesis adviser encourages her to go deeper, she quickly integrates herself in the conjure community on campus, and finding friends comes easy. But through her research, she discovers tales of a beast in the woods outside Bricksbury—and then a student goes missing from campus. As her own conjuring power grows, Zora realizes that what’s going on is more than mere folklore, and Bricksbury’s secrets may have placed all its students in terrible danger. Iker’s setting feels intricate and lived-in, with intermittent chapters about Bricksbury’s founder illuminating the school’s history. Unfortunately, the dialogue can be stilted, secondary characters are underdeveloped, and long expositional passages about Zora’s personal history break up an otherwise well-paced plot. Still, there’s enough that’s original in this creeping gothic to please horror and mystery fans alike. (Nov.)

Correction: A previous version of this review used the wrong pronoun to refer to the author.