The story is part thriller, part ghost story, and part meditation on trauma, as Felicity struggles to let go of Alex and the dark thoughts that have consumed her ever since she started digging into the world of the Dalloway Five for her thesis project. She’s working on a new novel, a story that she claims will reinvent the world of the Dalloway Five and explore how their deaths might have come about without magic or supernatural influence. New Godwin resident Ellis Haley is a prodigy, already an acclaimed author in her own right before she’s even graduated. (And where Alex also lived before her death.) She’s also chosen to return to Godwin House, the dormitory where so many of her best and worst days took place. Institutionalized after the death of her girlfriend Alex the previous year, she has returned to school for another attempt at her senior year in the hopes of finding something like a future.

Founded by a woman who was once accused as a Salem witch, Dalloway has its own secrets to keep, including what really happened to The Dalloway Five, a quartet of young girls who were rumored to be witches, who all died in mysterious and inexplicable circumstances.įelicity Morrow is a Dalloway student who has undergone more than her fair share of trauma. Yet, Victoria Lee’s latest novel, A Lesson in Vengeance, arrives like a breath of fresh air anyway, promising the biting chill and ghostly threat of Fall, even as August winds down.ĭripping with atmosphere, the story is set at the infamous Dalloway School, a prepster’s paradise with a dark history of death and violence. The dog days of summer – complete with intense heat, oppressive humidity, and a significant chance of random thunderstorms at any moment – may not seem like an ideal time for a spooky story about witches, murder, and dark academia to hit shelves.

A lesson in vengeance series