Mortal Passions

A gothic novel for fans of Elif Batuman's The Idiot and Stephen King's Salem's Lot.

Laura Wyck has waited her whole life to be chosen, but in the meantime, she chooses a PhD. Specifically, at the University of ---, a coveted and prestigious institution where she has spent the best part of her life. When Laura and her closest friends are informed about ominous and extensive staff cuts, they come together to ask questions that have no answer. They are left with nothing but empty jargon and rising dread about an unknown future.

But then Laura encounters Eli and everything changes. The stranger in the library, a dream of a butch, Eli is smooth, glittering, terribly seductive . . . and they set Laura's teeth on edge. They've been tasked by the University to oversee the dismantling of everything Laura holds close, draining the institution of its lifeblood.

As Laura is pulled into Eli's magnetic orbit and bodies begin to fall, the threat of death becomes a potent, shadowy force on campus. Swept away by her newfound privileges, Laura indulges in the beauty and grandeur of Eli's world, but her peers suspect that there is something festering and rotten behind Eli's charm. Is Laura in love, or is she being held hostage?

Riotously delicious and utterly consuming, Mortal Passions is a queer vampire romance that is at once an excoriating send-up of capitalism and a desperately sexy campus novel.