Shadow Lessons : A Dark Academia Romance: The ultimate sin is falling in love with your own damnation.

by Adriana Wolfe

Elara Vance, a brilliant but struggling scholarship student at the elite Blackwood University, is here for one to study under Professor Silas Thorne. A legend in the academic world, Thorne's work is as unsettling as his reputation. He's a man of secrets, a master of intellectual domination, and he sees through Elara’s carefully constructed defenses to the hunger she’s tried so desperately to hide.

Their first encounter is a violent clash of wits and will, setting the stage for a dangerous and addictive mentorship. What begins as a battle of intellect and pride soon descends into a world of forbidden knowledge and consuming obsession. As Elara finds herself drawn into Thorne’s private, gothic world, the lines between mentor and captor, education and punishment, begin to blur.

With whispers of a former student, Annelise Croft, echoing in the halls of Blackwood, Elara must decide if she can outsmart the man who sees her not as a student, but as the culmination of his life's work. In this dangerous game of cat and mouse, some lessons are learned with your body , some with your soul , and some with your heart. Will Elara emerge with her mind—and her life—intact, or will she find that the darkness isn’t gone; it's home?

234 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 17, 2025