Very early on in An Education in Malice, I had to pause and acknowledge that this was a Carmilla retelling in character names only, which is fine! The novel stands fine as an individual work and is interested in exploring its own themes rather than thoroughly engaging with the original text, but I was a bit disappointed as a big fan of the classic. Compared to A Dowry of Blood, where Dracula's brides in the original are more underdeveloped, mysterious characters so expanding upon them feels more like filling in a gap, this felt more like a complete reworking of Laura and Carmilla. Again, I don't think this is to the text's detriment necessarily, I just had to rework my expectations early on in the novel and thought it would be worth mentioning in the review so people know what they're in for.

In terms of An Education in Malice on its own, I really expected to love this book, enough that I preordered it--I love horror, vampires, sapphic fiction and a good spooky atmosphere! This was really set up to be a win for me, so I was a little disappointed that the novel fell a little short of these expectations. There were aspects of it that I really enjoyed, to be sure; the atmosphere throughout is both cozy and dark, with tons of beautiful descriptions of the New England setting. I also loved Laura as a character, struggling with her own desire and grappling with the social situations around her. Her relationship with Carmilla was electric and well-developed as well. Without spoilers, I also loved the cameo from A Dowry of Blood and the entire section where that character appears, it absolutely delivered on what I want from vampire media and worked well to develop the characters!

Still, this book had the potential to make me absolutely obsessed and foaming at the mouth--I really cannot overstate how much I am thinking about vampires and especially gay vampires literally all the time in my daily life--and it fell flat. I think this novel lacked a strong focus and wound up balancing a few too many elements for such a short length, from Carmilla and Laura's romance to Carmilla's unhealthy mentorship with De Lafontaine, and the mystery at the center of the school itself. Because all of these different plotlines were going on, each individual one felt a little underdeveloped and like we were jumping from one to the other--which is especially unfortunate because the relationship between Carmilla and De Lafontaine is so interesting. On a similar note, I actually wish this novel was a bit darker over all, especially when it came to that relationship. I think a big part of what made me enjoy A Dowry of Blood so much was really digging into this toxic relationship and all of its flaws, which only strengthened the characters' reactions to it and the conclusion of the book. Here, I felt like I didn't quite get as deep into Carmilla's dependence on De Lafontaine and how it's affecting her as I wanted to, or for that matter how Laura really navigates seeing someone she cares about in this relationship. I think this relationship lacked consequences for me--for this sort of exploration of an unhealthy dynamic, I want to really have to grapple with how it changes the characters and get a sense of the long healing process ahead of them, and I just didn't get that. The lack of depth to this central student-teacher relationship made the emotional elements of the story, again, really fall flat for me, especially compared to A Dowry of Blood. I wouldn't even necessarily need for the relationship to be more explicit or romantic or anything, I think that the unhealthy dynamic could've been pushed more even without that element, but that this wasn't really achieved. 

Overall, while I think this story has its strength, I don't think it achieved the depth, nuance, or compelling characterization that I really wanted from it, especially because I know how rich Gibson's writing can be.