Warren University promises prestige, but for Ellory Morgan, a first-generation Jamaican immigrant starting college at twenty-one, it delivers something far more sinister. Kamilah Cole’s adult debut, An Arcane Inheritance, weaves contemporary dark academia with supernatural horror, creating an atmospheric thriller that interrogates the violent foundations upon which elite institutions are built. While the novel’s ambitions occasionally exceed its execution, Cole delivers a compulsively readable mystery anchored by sharp social commentary and genuine emotional stakes.
The premise alone sends shivers down the spine: a secret society that has sustained its power through decades of sacrifice, targeting BIPOC students whose magical abilities make them both invaluable and expendable. It’s a metaphor with teeth, one that Cole sharpens throughout the narrative to cut deep into conversations about who gets remembered and who gets erased from history.
The Reluctant Detective and Her Insufferable Partner
Ellory Morgan carries the weight of expectations that many first-generation students will recognize intimately. She’s studying political science not because she loves it, but because journalism feels like an indulgence she cannot afford after her family’s sacrifices. Cole captures the specific anxiety of being “not needy enough for needs-based grants” yet struggling constantly with financial precarity—a middle ground that often goes unacknowledged in college narratives. Ellory’s voice pulses with determination tempered by self-doubt, her internal monologue shifting between razor-sharp observations and vulnerable admissions of feeling perpetually behind.
Hudson Graves serves as both romantic interest and investigative partner, though calling him either feels reductive. Cole crafts him as Ellory’s intellectual equal—arrogant where she is humble, privileged where she is hardworking, cutting where she is playful. Their academic rivalry-turned-partnership crackles with the kind of witty banter that makes you forget you’re reading rather than eavesdropping. Hudson’s room, overflowing with well-loved books from bell hooks to Nora Roberts, reveals depths that his condescending exterior conceals. The moments when Ellory discovers his annotated copy of Reel to Real or watches him genuinely smile feel like puzzle pieces clicking into place.
The supporting cast adds texture without overwhelming the central mystery. Tai, Ellory’s best friend with her confident “mediocre white man” energy, provides both comic relief and grounding normalcy. Boone Priestley, Hudson’s roommate and the newspaper editor, walks a compelling tightrope between ally and potential threat. Even Liam Blackwood, the charming love interest who ultimately cannot compete with Hudson’s intensity, serves a purpose in Ellory’s journey toward understanding what she truly wants.
Dark Halls and Darker Secrets
Cole constructs Warren University as a character in its own right. The Graves Library with its cathedral-like reading rooms and basement rare-book collections that feel like descending into burial chambers. Bailey Library’s frescos depicting exclusively white literary characters, a visual reminder of who belongs in these hallowed halls. The hidden museum room dedicated to the School for the Unseen Arts, dust-coated and deliberately forgotten. Each location drips with gothic atmosphere—Cole has clearly done her homework on how spaces can communicate institutional memory and willful amnesia.
The magic system in An Arcane Inheritance operates on a principle both elegant and horrifying: for magic to live, something must die. Cole explores three classifications—evocation, incantation, and divination—but the true genius lies in making magic extraction a perfect metaphor for how elite institutions have historically exploited marginalized communities. The Godwin Scholars appropriated magical traditions from Santeria to obeah, stripping them of cultural context in their desperate quest for power they could not naturally access. When that failed, they turned to harvesting magic directly from BIPOC students through a scholarship program designed to identify and exploit the gifted.
The Lost Eight—Letitia Rose, Manuel Sharp, Angel Mclaughlin, Olivia Holloway, Tasha Butler, Eugene Kang, Kristopher Douglas, and Joel Carroll—haunt the narrative as both victims and eventual allies. Cole’s interludes about Warren’s history punctuate the modern mystery, slowly revealing how the university’s rapid ascension to Ivy status came soaked in blood and sustained by ongoing sacrifice.
Where Mystery Meets Message
Cole’s prose shimmers with the kind of sensory detail that transforms reading into experiencing. She describes Hudson’s citrus-and-earth scent, the way Ellory’s anxiety manifests as a strangling sensation in her chest, the crackling electricity of magic coursing through someone’s veins. The dialogue snaps with naturalistic rhythms—these characters talk like real college students, complete with pop culture references, verbal sparring, and the particular exhaustion of navigating predominantly white spaces.
However, the pacing stumbles in the middle section as Ellory’s investigation circles the same questions without forward momentum. The memory loss mechanic—magic’s cost to Ellory—occasionally feels like a convenient plotting device rather than a fully integrated consequence, though Cole does explore the horror of forgetting yourself. Some revelations arrive with less impact than they deserve because the groundwork feels rushed or the emotional beats don’t quite land.
The romance develops with genuine chemistry, though readers seeking explicit scenes should look elsewhere—Cole keeps bedroom doors firmly closed. What she does beautifully is capture the intellectual attraction, the way Hudson and Ellory challenge and sharpen each other. Their partnership feels earned rather than inevitable, built through shared investigation and mutual respect that slowly transforms antagonism into something deeper.
The Weight of Uncomfortable Truths
Cole refuses to soften the edges of her social critique. Ellory endures microaggressions that will feel painfully familiar to many readers: surprise at her “normal” name, assumptions about her background, the salon scene where her fellow scholars pepper her with invasive questions while claiming not to be racist. The author draws from her own college experiences—she notes in the author interview that nearly everything said to Ellory at that salon was said to her during her four years at university.
The novel’s examination of how institutions maintain power through selective memory and deliberate erasure cuts deep. The Old Masters operate in plain sight, protected by wealth and whiteness, their crimes dismissed as conspiracy theories until the evidence becomes undeniable. Cole suggests that exposure alone won’t dismantle these systems—they must be torn down entirely, magic and all.
Some readers may find the resolution of An Arcane Inheritance too neat, with the Old Masters defeated and their secrets exposed. Others might want more exploration of the aftermath, the ripple effects of destroying a secret society so deeply embedded in the university’s power structure. Cole hints at continuing consequences but doesn’t fully explore them before the final page.
For Readers Who Crave:
- Atmospheric mystery with gothic undertones and genuine scares
- Academic rivals-to-lovers romance built on intellectual chemistry and witty banter
- Contemporary fantasy that interrogates real-world power structures
- Diverse protagonists navigating predominantly white institutions
- Slow-burn romance paired with fast-paced mystery
- Found family dynamics and fierce female friendships
If You Loved An Arcane Inheritance, Try:
- The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova – Another contemporary fantasy exploring magical legacies and family secrets with lush prose and Latin American influences.
- A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik – Dark academia fantasy examining how magical education systems sacrifice students, particularly those without privilege.
- Babel by R.F. Kuang – Historical dark academia exploring how institutions built on colonialism and exploitation maintain power through language and magic.
- The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth – Though not fantasy, explores similar themes of identity and survival within oppressive institutional structures.
- Legendborn by Tracy Deonn – Contemporary fantasy blending Arthurian legend with African American history, featuring a Black girl investigating secret societies at a prestigious university.
- These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong – For readers who enjoyed the rivals-to-lovers dynamic set against a backdrop of secrets and violence.
The Verdict
Kamilah Cole’s adult debut, An Arcane Inheritance, announces a writer unafraid to confront uncomfortable truths about academia, power, and whose stories get remembered. While the middle section meanders and some plot threads resolve too conveniently, the novel’s atmospheric setting, compelling central relationship, and sharp social commentary make it a worthy addition to the dark academia canon. Cole’s previous works in the Divine Traitors duology (So Let Them Burn and This Ends in Embers) demonstrated her skill with high fantasy worldbuilding; here she proves equally adept at grounding magic in contemporary institutional critique.
An Arcane Inheritance works both as an engaging mystery-thriller and as a meditation on how history gets written and who gets erased. It’s a book that trusts its readers to sit with discomfort, to recognize the systems it critiques, and to understand that some inheritances are better burned than passed down. For readers seeking dark academia that actually interrogates the darkness within academic institutions rather than merely aestheticizing it, Cole delivers something both entertaining and essential.
