Book Review: ‘Immortal Dark’ by Tigest Girma (Black vampire dark academia)
We’re starting off the ninth season of The Dark Academicals podcast with a hyped new release that we’ve both been so excited to read - Tigest Girma’s Black vampire fantasy debut, ‘Immortal Dark’.
I’ve said an embarrassing number of times how glad I am that vampires are back and going from strength to strength, and nothing makes me happier than that. There’s a whole host of possibilities with vampires and their lore and ‘Immortal Dark’ takes it in a direction that I’ve never seen before.
Hidden in our world, a society of vampires originating in Africa, can only feed from select human bloodlines. Each bloodline represents a House more cutthroat than the next. To ensure peaceful co-existence and inherit their legacy, human children of these families must study at an elite university before choosing a vampire companion.
Lost Heiress, Kidan Adane grew up far from Uxlay University. She is obsessively protective, mildly nihilistic, and willing to do anything to save her loved ones. When her sister, June, disappears, Kidan is convinced a vampire stole her - the alluring yet dangerous Susenyos Sagad, the same vampire bound to her own House.
To stay in Uxlay, Kidan must study an arcane philosophy, work with four enigmatic students, and survive living with Susenyos - even as he does everything to drive her away. It doesn't matter that Susenyos' violence speaks to her own and tempts Kidan to surrender to a life of darkness. She must find her sister and kill him at all costs.
When a murder mirroring June's disappearance shakes Uxlay, Kidan sinks further into the ruthless underworld of vampires, risking her very soul. Here, she discovers a centuries-old threat. And June could be at the very centre of it.
The Cruel Prince meets Ninth House in this dangerously romantic dark academia debut, where a lost heiress must infiltrate a secret society and live with the vampire she suspects kidnapped her sister.
Within only a few pages of this book I was completely absorbed by the atmosphere. It’s dark, tense and instantly foreboding, and that atmosphere lasts for the entire novel which is a serious feat. Atmosphere is one of the most important things for me, especially in dark academia, and ‘Immortal Dark’ completely nails it. I was on the edge of my seat every time Kidan and Susenyos interacted and the tension wracked up consistently, particularly in the last quarter of the book.
Most of that tension is because Kidan is so consistently angry all of the time. It never lets up. Never. It’s exhausting to spend nearly 500 pages with Kidan as she’s just a roiling ball of anger with nothing else ever really overtaking that anger - it’s always at the forefront of every interaction she has and every decision she makes. It clouds her and makes her very young and naive which adds to the confusion that I felt over the age range that this book falls into. It’s marketed as and published by a YA imprint, Kidan reads younger emotionally, but everything else about her reads older, and the intimate scenes push the age range even higher.
It was a big issue for me while reading as it’s something that I’m noticing in YA a lot more recently with the rise of BookTok and the nuts approach to spice being a requirement in every single book. It’s a very dark and intense novel and there were a few scenes between Kidan and Susenyos that felt rather uncomfortable in the light of this being a YA novel and I almost wish that it would have been published as an adult novel and leaned into that space.
The slow build between Kidan and Susenyos is a really solid way to move from true, mortal enemies to reluctant allies to possibly friends with benefits to the possibility of love. They’re complex characters, okay? I didn’t always feel the attraction between them because Kidan is so, so angry that there often didn’t feel like she had enough room for her to feel anything else when it comes to Susenyos. I wanted more from him as there’s so much in his history and so many secrets that are begging to be unravelled.
‘Immortal Dark’ by Tigest Girma is a rich, atmospheric and dark vampire fantasy with a bold and new mythology. I’m very much looking forward to how Kidan and Susenyos handle the revelations of the end of the novel as the trilogy progresses.
Written by Sophie
