What do you think?
Rate this book
The Society of Guenevere
A twisted cabal with the power to destroy a person's mind. A gifted intellectual who isn't part of the club. When their
destinies clash, can she retain her sanity?
Kerri Dale-Townsend is determined to carry on family tradition. But though she is a proud member of the Academic caste,
the ambitious twenty-something knows her lack of a Sponsor will make obtaining her graduate degree nearly impossible.
And when her books and papers go missing, appointments with advisors are changed without notice, and her home is
invaded, she realizes she's the target of a dark, covert academic society.
Able to sense supernatural forces bending reality around her, Kerri tries to protect herself by veiling her thoughts
with a mental barrier. Yet as snubs, sabotage, and strange maladies multiply, the focused young woman never knows
whether her first misstep will be her last.
Can she expose the evil core of the university without making a fatal mistake?
The Society of Guenevere is a dark academia fantasy. If you appreciate smart women, mysterious worlds, and fascinatingly
layered twists, then you'll love Deborah K. Vleck's tale celebrating calligraphy, propriety, and ingenuity.
Join Kerri in her fight against devious systems and shadowy assaults today!
A refreshingly different world in which to explore the magic of dark academia - a long, enjoyable read!
--Caroline Stevermer, co-author of Sorcery and Cecelia
destinies clash, can she retain her sanity?
Kerri Dale-Townsend is determined to carry on family tradition. But though she is a proud member of the Academic caste,
the ambitious twenty-something knows her lack of a Sponsor will make obtaining her graduate degree nearly impossible.
And when her books and papers go missing, appointments with advisors are changed without notice, and her home is
invaded, she realizes she's the target of a dark, covert academic society.
Able to sense supernatural forces bending reality around her, Kerri tries to protect herself by veiling her thoughts
with a mental barrier. Yet as snubs, sabotage, and strange maladies multiply, the focused young woman never knows
whether her first misstep will be her last.
Can she expose the evil core of the university without making a fatal mistake?
The Society of Guenevere is a dark academia fantasy. If you appreciate smart women, mysterious worlds, and fascinatingly
layered twists, then you'll love Deborah K. Vleck's tale celebrating calligraphy, propriety, and ingenuity.
Join Kerri in her fight against devious systems and shadowy assaults today!
A refreshingly different world in which to explore the magic of dark academia - a long, enjoyable read!
--Caroline Stevermer, co-author of Sorcery and Cecelia
- GenresFantasy
454 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 7, 2024
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 13, 2025
2024. Bought for $6.35 on 1/18/2025, reading for the Rivendell Discussion Group of the Mythopoeic Society on April 26, 2025.
https://www.societyofguenevere.com
https://ftlpublications.info/the-soci...
Deborah K. Vleck was Debbie Jones, 1948-2023, of the Twin Cities and the Rivendell Discussion Group, formerly resident in Australia and Hawaii.
Wow, this novel won’t leave me alone. Truly “rich and strange.” The Rivendell discussion group made it come alive in a way it hadn’t quite, while reading it for the first time. I think it (and I) would benefit from another reading and another discussion. For instance, knowing the author’s residence in Australia and Hawaii informs the Age of Dreams and the Islands (Honowell = Honolulu?) (and might Glen Eden suggest Eden Prairie, or Roeewood suggest Roseville?). And so much that is mysterious and even incomprehensible now might be seen as parody or metaphor for the academic professional life (I knew and admired and pitied some professors well enough to explain why I ran from it once upon a time) - was the author involved in academia, on her own account and / or her husband’s? Not that such a frame would eliminate the mystery, but it would improve comprehensibility (for me).
Needs Contents with chapter names, which are helpful and suggestive. Also a simple map would be nice.
Unicorns and kangaroos!
University Library v. Public Library!
Mental health issues in Kerri’s past pp. 88, 106, Or was it her magical or supra-normal abilities that neither she nor anyone else understood?
As in LIFE, Kerrith is kept in the dark too (as is the reader): Arya’s: “So many things you cannot be told, that you need to know! But there is nothing I can do. You must find out for yourself like everyone else, and I pray you do find out before it is too late.” p. 100
Maybe this is a parody of academia with its rigid rules that no one will break even when others don’t even know what they are. E.g., “I’m not supposed to tell you anything.” “Why not?” she protested. “It’s the rule.” p. 627.
Such powerfully fraught reactions over such low stakes, e.g., handwriting p. 330; the Faculty Ball;
Good MYSTERIES:
Is Nick a good guy?
Is Professor Bonneville-Chatterton a good guy?
Is the Power a bad thing?
Is the Alliance “Them”? Or is there another shadowy group?
What is good? What is bad? Which is the Alliance?
CASTES:
Academics (Professor)
Fellow
Cits / citizen
Peasants
Graduate students, elite and common
Stockholder (Excellency)
servant
Watchers (Dark and Bright)
Sea People
Road People
Gang of Four (two n Australia)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_...
VOCABULARY::
cits
currawongs
demented
delimiter
the Game
the Veil
Power, dread Power, Powerflash
Purpose
Danger
Them, They
Sponsor
Legacy
the Revel
Recitation (“And what in the world it was good for, … nobody knew.”)
Age of Dreams, numbered years
Bridge of Dreams
the Dreamer
the Star Dream
Years of Confusion
Real, not Real
the marai
proxy
casuarina
yahoos
Road glyphs
kapu
the Alliance
the Private Library
the Retreat
the Committee
the Brautigan
the Asylum
PLACES:
Yendys
River Path
River Market
Danville, Fernly, Evesham
Honowell
Twilight Country
Hampden Forest
Glen Eden
Some plot points:
The Faculty Ball
The Faculty Retreat
The marital fight
Kerri’s house and her assertion of dominance there ch. 50
Richard Brautigan's In Watermelon Sugar (1964, 1968) p. 425
Some Stupid stuff
Tradition governs too much
So many secrets up front
So many questions - I’m sure some are answered but there are so many I can’t keep track or remember them.
Clumsy world-building: electrical equipment but no electricians; fresh bread but no farmers or bakers; stockholders but no stock; unexplained wealth; no government; no telephones;
There’s a whole world here, not coherently explained, and the hints and what I see is not terribly attractive or exciting.
Sometimes feels like the author is making it up as she goes along, yet that and much else so disorienting, so mysterious, unexplained, is quite like LIFE (which we also make up as we go along).
Frustrating for a while, but the hints keep coming, if slowly, sporadically, and ultimately intriguingly.
A sort of post-modern vibe, disconcerting, hidden meanings, sometimes no meaning at all, yet resonant with meaning nonetheless, raising the question, “what is meaning?”
https://www.societyofguenevere.com
https://ftlpublications.info/the-soci...
Deborah K. Vleck was Debbie Jones, 1948-2023, of the Twin Cities and the Rivendell Discussion Group, formerly resident in Australia and Hawaii.
Wow, this novel won’t leave me alone. Truly “rich and strange.” The Rivendell discussion group made it come alive in a way it hadn’t quite, while reading it for the first time. I think it (and I) would benefit from another reading and another discussion. For instance, knowing the author’s residence in Australia and Hawaii informs the Age of Dreams and the Islands (Honowell = Honolulu?) (and might Glen Eden suggest Eden Prairie, or Roeewood suggest Roseville?). And so much that is mysterious and even incomprehensible now might be seen as parody or metaphor for the academic professional life (I knew and admired and pitied some professors well enough to explain why I ran from it once upon a time) - was the author involved in academia, on her own account and / or her husband’s? Not that such a frame would eliminate the mystery, but it would improve comprehensibility (for me).
Needs Contents with chapter names, which are helpful and suggestive. Also a simple map would be nice.
Unicorns and kangaroos!
University Library v. Public Library!
Mental health issues in Kerri’s past pp. 88, 106, Or was it her magical or supra-normal abilities that neither she nor anyone else understood?
As in LIFE, Kerrith is kept in the dark too (as is the reader): Arya’s: “So many things you cannot be told, that you need to know! But there is nothing I can do. You must find out for yourself like everyone else, and I pray you do find out before it is too late.” p. 100
Maybe this is a parody of academia with its rigid rules that no one will break even when others don’t even know what they are. E.g., “I’m not supposed to tell you anything.” “Why not?” she protested. “It’s the rule.” p. 627.
Such powerfully fraught reactions over such low stakes, e.g., handwriting p. 330; the Faculty Ball;
Good MYSTERIES:
Is Nick a good guy?
Is Professor Bonneville-Chatterton a good guy?
Is the Power a bad thing?
Is the Alliance “Them”? Or is there another shadowy group?
What is good? What is bad? Which is the Alliance?
CASTES:
Academics (Professor)
Fellow
Cits / citizen
Peasants
Graduate students, elite and common
Stockholder (Excellency)
servant
Watchers (Dark and Bright)
Sea People
Road People
Gang of Four (two n Australia)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_...
VOCABULARY::
cits
currawongs
demented
delimiter
the Game
the Veil
Power, dread Power, Powerflash
Purpose
Danger
Them, They
Sponsor
Legacy
the Revel
Recitation (“And what in the world it was good for, … nobody knew.”)
Age of Dreams, numbered years
Bridge of Dreams
the Dreamer
the Star Dream
Years of Confusion
Real, not Real
the marai
proxy
casuarina
yahoos
Road glyphs
kapu
the Alliance
the Private Library
the Retreat
the Committee
the Brautigan
the Asylum
PLACES:
Yendys
River Path
River Market
Danville, Fernly, Evesham
Honowell
Twilight Country
Hampden Forest
Glen Eden
Some plot points:
The Faculty Ball
The Faculty Retreat
The marital fight
Kerri’s house and her assertion of dominance there ch. 50
Richard Brautigan's In Watermelon Sugar (1964, 1968) p. 425
Some Stupid stuff
Tradition governs too much
So many secrets up front
So many questions - I’m sure some are answered but there are so many I can’t keep track or remember them.
Clumsy world-building: electrical equipment but no electricians; fresh bread but no farmers or bakers; stockholders but no stock; unexplained wealth; no government; no telephones;
There’s a whole world here, not coherently explained, and the hints and what I see is not terribly attractive or exciting.
Sometimes feels like the author is making it up as she goes along, yet that and much else so disorienting, so mysterious, unexplained, is quite like LIFE (which we also make up as we go along).
Frustrating for a while, but the hints keep coming, if slowly, sporadically, and ultimately intriguingly.
A sort of post-modern vibe, disconcerting, hidden meanings, sometimes no meaning at all, yet resonant with meaning nonetheless, raising the question, “what is meaning?”
July 3, 2024
This story took me to places I could easily envision, along with characters and a world I won't forget. It was definitely a worthwhile read. I appreciated the detail. This is a story to not only read, but feel. It makes for a lasting experience.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews