The Library at Hellebore

By Cassandra Khaw

Book Overview

DELUXE EDITION--a gorgeous hardcover edition featuring cobalt blue sprayed edges
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)

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250877814
• ISBN13: 9781250877819
• Release Date: July 2025
• Publisher: Tor Nightfire
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

The darkest academia ever!

I think this was the darkest of dark academia that I have read (and I thought A Deadly Education was really good but also dark). I did find it quite hard to put down and though it did not spare the reader from bodily waste and organs and to put it quite bluntly, completely horrifying deaths for those unlucky students at Hellebore that made it to graduation day. I liked the little snippets of before so you can get to know the people that ended up at that school either through voluntary enrollment or in the case of Alessa and others, kidnapped in the middle of the night and waking up at the school. Not quite sure who decided that it was best to put all the monsters in one place (as all the students are murderers, though some by accident) and let them have at it. I did like Alessa though as well as her interactions with the others like Rowan, Portia, and Joanna, getting to know their powers and making them feel human despite what they can do. Lots of gore, gruesome body horror, and quite a bit of every person for themselves as the faculty declared only one can leave. And I was a big fan of the ending, twisted though it was as it was justified and I don't blame Alessa in the slightest. It was darkly fascinating and my favorite book that I have read by this author.