Serena’s Review: “The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door”

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Book: “The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door” by H. G. Parry

Publishing Info: Redhook, October 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: Netgalley!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Camford, 1920. Gilded and glittering, England’s secret magical academy is no place for Clover, a commoner with neither connections nor magical blood. She tells herself she has fought her way there only to find a cure for her brother Matthew, one of the few survivors of a faerie attack on the battlefields of WWI which left the doors to faerie country sealed, the study of its magic banned, and its victims cursed.

But when Clover catches the eye of golden boy Alden Lennox-Fontaine and his friends, doors that were previously closed to her are flung wide open, and she soon finds herself enmeshed in the seductive world of the country’s magical aristocrats. The summer she spends in Alden’s orbit leaves a fateful mark: months of joyous friendship and mutual study come crashing down when experiments go awry, and old secrets are unearthed.

Years later, when the faerie seals break, Clover knows it’s because of what they did. And she knows that she must seek the help of people she once called friends—and now doesn’t quite know what to call—if there’s any hope of saving the world as they know it.

Review: I really loved “The Magician’s Daughter” when I read it a few years ago! Best of all, it took me by surprise, packing a deeper punch into what I had taken as a rather superficial cozy read at first glance. That being the case, I went into this next book by H. G. Parry with fairly high expectations! And while I will say that I think I preferred “Magician’s Daughter” on the whole, this was still an excellent read on its on right.

This is really a book of two halves. The first one starts off as a fairly straight-forward, HP-like dark academia story, following our main character, Clover, as she first comes to her new school, meets a group of friends, and begins uncovering the mysteries of magic that are tightly wound all around them. But then, as the story continues, the book fast-forwards and we see these characters again later in their lives as they must deal with the repercussions of the decisions they made while in school. It was definitely an interesting structure, and one that I hadn’t been expecting, being at first fully immersed in the school days aspects that made up the first half.

But the second half is where the story really starts to shine, especially as a character-driven narrative. Not only do we see these characters at different points in their lives, but we see how their ambitions and goals have directed their paths forward, sometimes in unexpected ways. They are all compelling, but flawed, people who make mistakes, sometimes correcting and sometimes doubling down all the more. I really enjoyed these themes, especially the way the author explored the way that ambition can begin to corrode relationships between people.

The pacing was a bit on the slow side, but I think that this largely worked given the emphasis on characterization and the exploration of the inner workings of these people. The world-building was also good, though some of the details regarding the fantasy elements were a bit slow to arrive, requiring some patience on the reader’s part to trust that answers will come. I don’t want to go into spoilers, but there were some twists and turns that were truly heart-wrenching, and I’d definitely put this one in the “bittersweet” category, for what it’s worth.

Fans of dark academia and especially readers who are looking for character-driven stories should definitely check this one out!

Rating 8: Exploring themes of ambition and its impact on relationships, this book is as heart-wrenching as it is beautiful!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door” can be found on this Goodreads list: 2024 Dark Academia Releases