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Reading lists

12 new and classic dark academia books

The Vipers

From the bestselling author of The Cloisters comes this electrifying thriller about an affluent family whose annual retreat to Italy is shattered when a decades-old murder resurfaces . . . think The Talented Mr Ripley meets Succession meets The White Lotus . . . 
 
[Published in the US as Saltwater] 
 
On the glittering island of Capri, anything can be a mirage. But one thing is true: there's nothing deadlier than a family with everything to lose . . . 
 
The world was shocked by playwright Sarah Lingate’s death thirty years ago at an opulent, 
white-washed villa on the island of Capri. Absolved of the crime, the Lingate family maintains that what happened that night was a tragic accident. And every July they return to Capri to prove it’s true. 
 
This time, Helen Lingate - sole heir to the family fortune - has a plan. Tightly controlled by her father, she enlists the help of the family assistant, Lorna Silva, to free herself from her family’s stranglehold on her life. And yet, behind closed doors, the legendary Lingate family unity is at breaking point. Upon arrival at the villa in Capri, a anonymous gift awaits them: the necklace Sarah was wearing the night she died. 
 
In the aftermath, the paranoid, insular Lingates begin to unravel. As the investigation into her mother’s death is reopened, Helen begins to lose trust in everyone around her: her controlling father Richard, drug-addled aunt Naomi, aloof uncle Marcus, and even Lorna, whose past she realizes is frustratingly opaque. And as the family fractures, the long-hidden truth about that night and the secrets they’ve kept from one another boil to the surface - and they might not leave the island alive. 
 
'Sultry and sophisticated with a menacing undercurrent that keeps you thrillingly unsettled until its final spellbinding twist. Let the languid glamour of Capri gently take you by one hand, an ice cold Negroni in the other, but watch your step — the cliffs are treacherous and so, too, is a family with everything to lose.' 
RACHEL KOLLER CROFT, author of Stone Cold Fox 
 
'Engrossing and sinister . . . a must-read for 2025.' JULIE CLARK, author of The Last Flight

The Lingates have it all: prestige, power and the potential to be irrevocably destroyed if long-buried secrets get into the wrong hands . . . Katy Hays' The Vipers is sultry and sophisticated with a menacing undercurrent that keeps you thrillingly unsettled until its final spellbinding twist. Let the languid glamour of Capri gently take you by one hand, an ice cold Negroni in the other, but watch your step—the cliffs are treacherous and so, too, is a family with everything to lose.

RACHEL KOLLER CROFT, author of Stone Cold Fox

Engrossing and sinister . . . has all the elements thriller readers love: dead bodies, deception, and betrayal. But at its core, this multi-layered story delves into the concepts of familial loyalty and generational trauma . . . a must-read for 2025!

Brilliantly written in scintillating prose . . . an Italian Opera for the modern age, in which a daughter of fortune desperate to escape her monstrous family digs up the skeletons of the past, setting off a serpentine chain reaction that will leave you breathless. Superbly plotted and deftly executed, this searing takedown of the upper crust is one to savour!

NINA SIMON, author of Mother-Daughter Murder Night

Beguiling and atmospheric, an entrancing and gripping tale.

I adored this deliciously gothic, beautifully written novel.

This is a modern, Gothic masterpiece. Successfully linking modern critical thinking with the divinity of the past, and human nature's desire to believe that there is something else out there.

Katy Hays is a writer and adjunct Art History professor in California, where she teaches rural students from Truckee to Tecopa. She holds an MA in Art History from Williams College and pursued her PhD at UC Berkeley. She has worked in curatorial and research roles at major art institutions, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and The Clark Art Institute, and her insider's knowledge of the workings of museums and galleries informed her debut novel, the international bestseller, The Cloisters. Katy lives with her husband and dog, Queso, in Olympic Valley in the Sierra Nevada.

Katy Hays

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP 5 BESTSELLER . . . IN HARDBACK AND NOW IN PAPERBACK! 
 
The Secret History meets Ninth House . . . the discovery of a mysterious deck of tarot cards lays bare shocking secrets within a close-knit circle of researchers at New York's famed Met Cloisters museum. 
 
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'Glamour, power, seduction, ambition – The Cloisters has it all. I adored this deliciously gothic, beautifully written novel.' LOUISE O'NEILL, 
 
'Dark and enigmatic . . . a story of academic obsession, Renaissance magic and the ruthless pursuit of power. Captivating in every sense.' SARAH PEARSE 
 
'Elegant and atmospheric and suffused with brooding menace.' LUCY CLARKE 
 
'Sultry and sinister . . . teems with sexual tension, the secrets of divination, and scholarly obsessiveness . . . jaw-dropping.' SARAH PENNER 
 
‘Beguiling and atmospheric, an entrancing and gripping tale.’ KATE MOSSE 
 
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Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, hoping to spend her summer working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she is assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its collection of medieval and Renaissance art. 
 
Drawn into a small circle of charismatic but enigmatic researchers, Ann happy to indulge some of their more outlandish theories, including the museum's curator who is fixated on tarot and the real possibility of predicting the future. 
 
But when Ann discovers a mysterious, once-thought lost deck of 15th-century Italian tarot cards she finds herself at the centre of a dangerous game of power, toxic friendship and ambition. 
 
And as the game being played within the Cloisters spirals out of control, Ann must decide who she trusts . . .

Katy Hays

The Cloisters

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