I.V. Marie makes her entrance onto the YA scene with her debut fantasy novel Immortal Consequences, which was signed in a six-figure deal by Lydia Gregovic at Delacorte Press in November 2023. Immortal Consequences is set at Blackwood Academy, a school in the afterlife that acts as purgatory for its students, including Wren, Augustine, Emilio, Olivier, Irene, and Masika. At the Decennial Festival, the six students are invited to compete for the chance to escape purgatory and ascend to the Other Side or join the magical elite, but will have to prove they’re willing to do anything, including betray one another, for the opportunity. Marie spoke with PW about the continuous pull of the dark academia genre, the process of developing a large cast of characters, and how her relationship to grief inspired her debut.
How did you land on a multi-POV story and where did each of your characters’ voices come from?
I just genuinely love multi-POV books. It’s always been in books I’ve gravitated more towards like [Leigh Bardugo’s] Six of Crows, and [Olivie Blake’s] The Atlas Six. I really enjoy getting the opportunity to explore characters, [and their] motivations and desires. You can do that in single POV, but there’s something special about getting into their psyche [with multiple perspectives]. And given the fact that these six characters were all going through the same trial, I felt like getting each of their mindsets was equally important. From the beginning, I wanted their dynamic to come across very clearly. And I loved getting to write the six of them together, playing around with their clashing personalities; those are my favorite scenes.
What drew you to the dark academia aspect of this novel? Is it a subgenre that holds a significant place for you?
There’s something enticing about not only writing but reading about the aesthetically pleasing aspects of academia—but there’s also a lot of dark stuff. There are added layers of obsession and power, and what it means to have power and who should have it. And all of those conflicting themes I think are interesting to explore, especially in fantasy.
I love fantasy because I feel like you can express things that are so important in the real world, but that maybe can become more palatable, especially for younger readers, to process. And obviously, there’s romance and tension and trials, but there are also themes of obsession and power and grief, and what it means to not only grieve the ones you love but grieve the person that you used to be. Having this dark academia setting that feels so claustrophobic and insular really helps be able to explore those [issues].
Early in the novel, readers are invited to question the sanctity of Blackwood Academy and its goals. Was this intentional? How do you hope readers interact with the institution of Blackwood throughout the book?
We think of death being this concept of the unknown, and ultimately we don’t have all the concrete answers. I wanted readers to have that same feeling upon entering Blackwood, of it being a bit of an enigma—not fully understanding the rules, and having that feeling that at any point something could flip, and all their ideas of how the world works can suddenly change. Because that’s the feeling you get at the thought of death and the afterlife. I wanted Blackwood almost to feel like its own sentient thing. That’s another part of dark academia institutions; even if they seem perfect at a surface level, there’s always a dark underbelly. I wanted that to come through with Blackwood as well, without giving too much away. There’s things simmering beneath the surface, and not everything is as controlled and in order as it may appear.
For these characters, living in purgatory could be a fate worse than death. Why did you want to explore the concept of the afterlife and its potential pitfalls?
There’s something interesting in [the idea] of what would you do if you had been handed an eternity? And also, what would it take for you to give up that eternity? Because a lot of the characters are confronted with that choice. If they win the competition, they can either have all of this power and stay in purgatory forever and be handed this eternity, or they can risk putting their soul to rest on the Other Side, and risk that unknown: giving up that eternity perhaps for eternal peace.
I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of death, so it’s always been something I’ve struggled with. I’ve experienced really intense loss from a very young age. My dad passed away about two years before I started writing this book, so it was very much on my mind, and using the concept of an afterlife in purgatory was also a way to process my own grief. I wanted to take this thing that had the potential to make me very sad and turn it into something that ultimately brought me joy and could bring others joy—by having this outlet where characters are exploring and processing their own grief.
Immortal Consequences (The Souls of Blackwood Academy #1) by I.V. Marie. Delacorte, July 29 $21.99, ISBN 978-0-593-89880-2
