Gothikana by RuNyx

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The Ravished by Romance book club choice for October is Gothikana by RuNyx! This was actually on my radar after Crystal from Crystal's Bookish Life read it a little bit ago. She mentioned it would be a good spooky season book. The Bang in the Night Bingo challenge has a gothic prompt and I thought this would be a good option for that as well. It also covers the prompts #banginthenight, full moon on cover/stepback, who you gonna call?, into the woods, black cover, it's a sign and CSI: crime scene investigation. I also applied this to the prompt over 300 pages for Fall in Love. I also read this during the Smutathon and it covered the prompts dark, paranormal, published in 2021, taboo and new to you author.

Corvina receives a letter of interest from a unique college. After dealing with her mother's schizophrenia being diagnosed and put into an institution, she's been living alone on the outside of her town. Having been homeschooled and rarely making contact with the normal society, she decides to accept and attend despite being older than the usual freshman. Once there, things are not what they seem. Students tend to go missing every 5 years as well as many students suddenly killing themselves. Corvina receives clues and starts figuring out the history and lore of the college. Along the way she connects with graduate student and part time teacher Vad.

This was such an atmospheric book and I was really drawn into what was happening at the school and with Corvina. I wasn't expecting it, but there was a lot of deep discussion about various topics. This was such an interesting read. It's hard to say exactly how it made me feel. I loved Vad and how RuNyx kept him mysterious to keep us in Corvina's POV better. Vad was another possessive hero and I was here for it. They were so steamy together and you could really feel the tension between them. There was also an interesting fated mates aspect woven between them.

Why the 4-stars? I just wanted more from the romance aspect. I just felt like there was a good connection between them, but a lot of the connection and discussions between them were just explained as having been happened and not witnessed by the reader. I also thought it was odd that Corvina was very open to tarot, guides, crystals and energies. At the same time she was very against the thought that she might be actually talking to ghosts and not suffering from the same disease as her mother. I just seemed a little off to me for her to be split like that. This was also pretty long, almost too long. It didn't quite feel overdone, but there could've been some things that could've been tightened up.

I still really enjoyed my time reading this and am definitely interested in her other works. She mentions in her author's note that this is different, but I enjoyed the writing style. Not sure when or how long it'll take for me to get to it, but I'm certainly intrigued. I think they are dark romances, so that's fun. It was also cool to see what others took from the story during the live show.

Have you read Gothikana?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Gothikana, RuNyx, 4-stars, 2 days, eBook, 456 pages, published in 2021