Immortal Dark

• Author: Tigest Girma
• Genre: Fantasy
• Publication Date: September 3, 2024
• Publisher: Hachette Audio
• Series: Immortal Dark Trilogy #1

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Audio for providing me with an ALC of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

The Cruel Prince meets Ninth House in this dangerously romantic dark academia fantasy, where a lost heiress must infiltrate an arcane society and live with the vampire she suspects killed her family and kidnapped her sister.

It began long before my time, but something has always hunted our family.

Orphaned heiress Kidan Adane grew up far from the arcane society she was born into, where human bloodlines gain power through vampire companionship. When her sister, June, disappears, Kidan is convinced a vampire stole her—the very vampire bound to their family, the cruel yet captivating Susenyos Sagad.

To find June, Kidan must infiltrate the elite Uxlay University—where students study to ensure peaceful coexistence between humans and vampires and inherit their family legacies. Kidan must survive living with Susenyos—even as he does everything he can to drive her away. It doesn’t matter that Susenyos’s wickedness speaks to Kidan’s own violent nature and tempts her to surrender to a life of darkness. She must find her sister and kill Susenyos 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. There she discovers a centuries-old threat—and June could be at the center of it. To save her sister, Kidan must bring Uxlay to its knees and either break free from the horrors of her own actions or embrace the dark entanglements of love—and the blood it requires.

Vampires in a dark academia setting was an irresistible lure for me, and I didn’t even try to resist it. The fact that I found this in audiobook format on NetGalley made this even easier to request. Vampire stories haven’t had a resurgence like they are experiencing now since Twilight, and I am here for it.

Girma is Ethiopian, and found a way to combine her Ethiopian heritage with traditional vampire lore and newer elements to create an entirely new type of vampire story. I loved that the entire cast was Black, and there were strong ‘Black is sexy’ and ‘proud to be Black’ vibes throughout the entire story. Combining all these different elements gave everything a fresh and unique feel. The characters have a variety of skin tones, representing a wide range of Black humanity.

However, I quickly discovered that the start of the book was detailed and confusing for me to take in through audiobook format. I had to listen to the start of the book three times before everything sank in, and I couldn’t help but think that it would have been easier to to read it as an ebook, since I tend to process more complex information when I read it as a book rather than having it read to me as an audiobook.

Kidan isn’t a simple Mary Sue character. In the very beginning, we learn right away that she is a morally gray character, just like all the others we meet. She’s killed someone, and all to find her missing sister. The suspect that she knows is responsible is the vampire who is tied to her house, and by following her sister to Uxlay University, she hopes to discover where her sister is. This leads us into a wonderful dark academia section of the book, involving rich kids, a lot of studying, secrets, vampires, shifting alliances, and feuds between the major families. 

There’s also an enemies to lovers subplot, and while it becomes a huge part of the story that kind of overshadows the main plot in parts of the story, Girma provides what might be the best possible example of a slow-burn enemies to lovers trope. Kidan and Susenyos aren’t just not in agreement, these two actively hate each other. I liked how their relationship slowly changed over the course of the story, making it feel believable when it changed from enemies into something more.

However, there were some things that I didn’t love about the story. The story felt like it dragged, and could easily have been shorter. There’s also a big change in the story at around the halfway point, and I found myself feeling less invest in the second half of the book as opposed to the first half. I also really struggled with Kidan’s central premise, that since one vampire did something bad, that all vampires are horrible and deserve to be wiped out. It smacks of genocidal thinking, and I don’t know how not a single person called her out for that. I’m glad that she was able to get past that, but that kind of dehumanizing and prejudicial thinking needs to be challenged, and not a single person did that in this story. 

Overall, this had all of the elements that I love, but when it all came together, it kind of fell short for me. There were a few things that I didn’t like, such as the genocidal thinking, the way the romance overshadowed the plot, and how much the story changed from the first half and the second, while there were more things that I did like. I loved the way the author incorporated her Ethiopian culture and heritage, the pride in being Black vibes, the morally gray cast of characters, how fantastically the enemies to lovers trope plays out, and the dark academia setting. So if those are things you like, this might just be the book for you.

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