Book Review: ‘And He Shall Appear’ by Kate van de Borgh

I was immediately captured by the title of this novel and as soon as I read the synopsis, I put it forward for this season of The Dark Academicals. We were both suckered in by how brilliant it sounded, but I did end up being a little disappointed.

In the hallowed halls of Cambridge, a dangerous obsession takes hold…

When a young man arrives in Cambridge as a first-year student, he finds himself an outsider. There’s the punting and the politics, the wine and the waistcoats, all seemingly familiar to everyone but him. Then he falls under the spell of Bryn Cavendish.

A notorious party boy and skilled magician, Bryn is magnetic. To be in his circle is to revel in clouds of ecstasy, untouched by the rules. To be exiled is to haunt the peripheries of campus life like a ghost.

As the academic year intensifies and Bryn’s magic tricks become more sinister, one question lingers. Is Bryn’s charisma the source of his influence or does he wield a much darker and more dangerous power?

At first I was really excited about what the novel would bring: we’re dropped with a ghostly opening and then whisked off to Cambridge for our unnamed narrator’s first year in the early 00s. He finds himself amidst wealth, privilege and entitlement that his working class Northern upbringing couldn’t have prepared him for, and is both repelled and captivated by the way that these students carry themselves through the college.

Bryn is the head of the group and the person that stands out to our protagonist. With them both being musically gifted, he finds a way in to the group and to Bryn’s confidence and becomes obsessed with him and their friendship. As we know in dark academia, obsession never ends well and it doesn’t for these two either.

I expected the magic and occult connections to be stronger and more overt than they were and I was a little disappointed that they remained fairly off page and ephemeral. I was hoping for full on occult rituals and that tiptoe into potential horror, though I will admit that there are psychological elements for those being tormented by Bryn. I wanted more punch though, and it ended up being a little lacklustre.

The writing, however, was really engaging and the tension built and built and built throughout the novel. The characterisation of Bryn particularly is really strong and all of the characters are pretty hard to like which is a feat in itself, but it wasn’t enough to carry our protagonist who just felt like a vehicle for the setting and for Bryn and his friends. I realise that in part was a choice, hence him not being named, but it can be a really successful device in that way and it almost felt like it went the other way in ‘And He Shall Appear’.

While ‘And He Shall Appear’ wasn’t my favourite book of this season, I respect what it was trying to do and it will most definitely find it’s fans in dark academia.

Thank you to NetGalley and Fourth Estate for the review copy.