The Library at Hellebore
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3.6 • 12 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
AN INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER!
A LibraryReads and Indie Next Pick!
A deeply dark academia novel from USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw, perfect for fans of A Deadly Education and An Education in Malice who are hungry for something more diabolical.
The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.
Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told after she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled.
But the Institute is more than just a haven for monsters. On graduation day, the faculty embark on a ravenous rampage, feasting on their students. Trapped in the school’s cavernous library, Alessa and her surviving classmates must do something they were never taught: work together.
If they don't, this school will eat them alive...
Also by Cassandra Khaw:
The Salt Grows Heavy
Nothing But Blackened Teeth
A Song for Quiet
Hammers on Bone
The Dead Take the A Train (co-written with Richard Kadrey)
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Khaw (The Salt Grows Heavy) delivers a shockingly gory and not entirely successful take on dark academia set at the Hellebore Technical Institute for the Ambitiously Gifted, a school for those with magical abilities. In an alternate universe in which magic has returned to the world after disappearing during the Renaissance, the government requires anyone presenting magical abilities to be rounded up and "educated" at places like Hellebore, which is no Hogwartsesque center of wholesome magical learning. Alternating between chapters labeled "Before," in which protagonist Alessa first arrives at the school, and those that take place in the present, when the teachers have revealed themselves to be bloodthirsty monsters intent upon feeding on the students, Alessa details the callous, bloody, and confounding nature of the school. Due to this alternating timeline, as well as the incomprehensibility intrinsic to the surreal workings of Hellebore itself, it can be hard to grasp the rules, norms, and limitations guiding this world, which makes the stakes uncertain. The characters, too, are difficult to parse: Alessa is a typical rebellious, sarcastic, young-adult heroine, but her relationships with her classmates—and theirs with each other—shift uncertainly from scene to scene. The result is messy, both literally and figuratively.
Customer Reviews
A Work of Very Dark Academia
“The Library at Hellebore” is a 2025 horror novel by Cassandra Khaw. It takes place in an alternate world, where dark beings and eldritch horrors mingle with humanity. In this world, the “gifted” end up being sent to, or kidnapped by, the Hellebore Academy. Therefore, this book could be considered in the “Dark Academia” sub-genera. The students are at Hellebore to be trained to control their dark talents, or die trying.
The book opens with the protagonist, Alessa, having just killed her roommate. Her talent is to cause people’s bodies to unmake themselves. Therefore, there’s a horrible mess all over her, as well as their room. So she gets sent to the headmistress, who she soon realizes has a disturbing ability to control time. Alessa then meets other students, and attends an assembly where the horror of the Faculty is revealed. Then, the surviving students retreat into the titular Library, where they have to survive the treats they pose to each other, as well as the horror of The Librarian.
This book is disturbing on many levels. There is a great deal of blood and gore, so very much gore. Body horror is also prevalent. It also is disorienting, as it isn’t a chronologically linear narrative. It keeps backing up to previous events in its “Before” Chapters, eventually things get explained. Near the end we find out why Alessa murdered her roommate. I think it is a freestanding book, because the ending doesn’t seem to lend itself to sequels. However, given the nature of the time narrative, I guess prequels are possible. This is a hardcore horror work, not simply dark fantasy. Be warned…