Book Review: ‘Dead Poets Sorority’ by Sofia Shelley (ghostly campus paranormal romance)

We’ve recently started a new series on The Dark Academicals Book Club on Substack where we do a little bonus episode, an Annotated Extra if you will, for those books that have dark academia vibes or marketing tags, but that we don’t think will work properly will the podcast. As soon as ‘Dead Poets Sorority’ crossed our notice, it was a given that we’d feature it.

Poets? Checks. University setting with a college paper and Greek Letters? Check. Ghostly and paranormal goings-on? Check.

He’s handsome, funny, and a real Romantic. Unfortunately, he’s dead.

When student journalist Emma goes undercover to investigate a secret society resurrecting long-dead literary icons, she expects to discover nothing more than a group of college girls with Ouija boards. What she doesn’t expect is to accidentally summon the spirit of never-quite-famous poet, Nathaniel Harker.

Now, Emma’s got a brooding, besotted nineteenth-century poet following her around. But whilst initially determined to write the article of a lifetime, she quickly discovers that the lure of her very own love-struck tortured poet is hard to resist…

However, as they fall for each other, Emma realizes the sorority sisters are onto her ghostly secret. It’s up to her to keep her poet safe no matter what the cost―but will protecting Nathaniel also mean losing him forever?

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days meets Ghosts in this quirky, gothic, dark academia romance.

You can listen to our full bonus episode on Substack.

While we very quickly realised that this isn’t a dark academia novel, regardless of what the summary says, it’s a super quick and fun paranormal romance that will deliver a dose of lightness and romance without ruining the vibes of your spooky season TBR.

It’s very much a light romance vibes rather than the dark and Gothic that we know and love with dark academia, but they sit alongside each other nicely. There were lots of moments that a little extra depth, extra reach, and a bit of extra development, would have nailed those vibes, but it also works perfectly as a light romance.

We both went in hoping for that darker edge that was promised with the dark academia marketing, but we enjoyed ‘Dead Poets Sorority’ for what it is and if it becomes a series with Vivian’s epilogue becoming a whole book? Sign us up, because that is the vibe we were after.

Thank you to Avon UK for gifting both of us with review copies. We were not paid to talk about the novel and all thoughts and opinions remain our own.