I absolutely had issues putting this book down!! It was sooo addictive and I couldn’t wait to see what happened!! I usually don’t enjoy unreliable main characters, but I couldn’t help but like Felicity. She is just broken in a way that tugged at my heart strings and drew me in from the first couple of chapters. Hell, I was drawn in from the blurb on the book!! Then Ellis… oh our dear, dear Ellis… Arthur suspects that there is a traitor in Camelot who is trying to kill him. Gwen encourages Arthur that they will find the traitor, but little does Arthur know that Gwen is the traitor. Merlin and Gaius are walking around in the forest, trying to find some clues to who is the traitor. Gaius finds a piece of cloth on a tree, and states that whoever owns it is rich and wealthy. Guinevere then goes in to the Market and is met by Morgana, who uses magic to disguise herself as Hilda and gives her the poison, then leaves. Gwaine then goes with two knights to Tyr Seward, the stablehand to the King and arrests him. The confused Tyr is taken away by the knights. Leon then goes to Tyr's mother Gelda Seward and informs her that her son has been arrested in suspicion of treason, whilst the other knights look around in the house. Gelda does not believe her son has done anything wrong, but Percival finds the thread that was used to re-stitch the girth of the saddle. Tyr is brought before Arthur who questions him. Tyr denies all the things he is accused of, but Arthur does not believe him and asks him to reveal the names of his accomplice. Tyr tells him he has no name to give him, which causes Arthur to sentence him to death.

The thing is, this novel is written through Felicity’s point of view in first person and when I started this book, I questioned that choice. Wouldn’t third person add more to the intrigue of the story?But I can't stress enough that there is no real build or climax here, so I'm not sure what we're doing. When classes start, Godwin will be home to a brand new crop of students: third- and fourth-years with bright eyes and souls they sold to literature. Girls who might prefer Oates to Shelley, Alcott to Allende. Girls who know nothing of blood and smoke, the darker kinds of magic.” Felicity tries to run but she can’t hide from Dalloway’s occult lore because it is the foundation the school was built on and Ellis won’t let her forget it. A smart, layered, thought-provoking thriller about female desire and the intimacy of violence.”—Ava Reid, author of The Wolf and the Woodsman With queer primary characters, an irresistible gothic atmosphere, and unrelenting creeping dread, this propulsive work of dark academia is both thrilling and thought-provoking."

Guinevere then sneaks the unconscious poison into Arthur's drink. Arthur, after drinking the potion falls unconscious, and Gwen manages to poison him. When Gaius and a few knights come into Arthur's room, Gaius declares that the king was poisoned. Gwen says that there is only one person she knows who has access to his food: Merlin. Author Victoria Lee also sat down to talk with us about the novel, from its overlap with the Dark Academia genre to her joy in writing female villains. NOTE 2.0: people have brought up that this book has poor POC rep! It's really important that we talk about this and urge authors to do better. Let’s talk for a moment about how well written this is too. The worlds are practically lyrical, they’re put together that well. I love books that have a certain rhythm to them and keep the reader entertained at the same time. I’d have to say that this is the most well written book I’ve read this year thus far. Draws you in and never let’s go, but the voice it’s written in is just perfect. Definitely read it if: you want more (dark) sapphic thrillers, or if you like books with lots of underlying psychology and things to analyse.this book is a lot of firsts for me. for one, it's my first book with a canonically nonbinary/trans character. as a trans author myself, this feels so validating, to be able to write a character like myself into a mainstream piece of fiction. it's also my first book with a big five publisher, that will be carried in bookstores. and i can't wait to share felicity and ellis' world with you all. We’re excited to reveal the cover for Victoria Lee’s A Lesson in Vengeance, a dark atmospheric thriller about a boarding school haunted by its history of witchcraft—and two girls dangerously close to digging up the past. I so very much loved the Feverwake duology and I can say I was thoroughly impressed by this novel which was leagues away from their previous work. I can’t wait to see them grow even more as an author and consume the range of stories they’ll be publishing in the future. I feel like she creates and unravels me in the same moment, a sentence she writes and and erases and rewrites, a product of her want and imagination. I feel like she invented me."