The Library At Hellebore: A Dark Tale Of Power And Pain

The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw: A Dark Tale of Power and Pain

Grotesque and compelling, this is a work of horror genius. I highly recommend it, but only if you’re strong enough.
Oh, and whatever you do, do NOT go into the Library.

The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.

Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told when she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled.

But there’s more to Hellebore than meets the eye. On graduation day, the faculty go on a ravenous rampage, feasting on Alessa’s class. Only Alessa and a group of her classmates escape the carnage. Trapped in the school’s library, they must offer a human sacrifice every night, or else the faculty will break down the door and kill everyone.

Cassandra Khaw is one of those authors who just seems to get better with every book. Even ones that haven’t vibed with me quite so much have been indisputably excellent, and ‘The Library at Hellebore’ is a writer at the peak of her powers. So far.

This book is a giant middle finger to all of those ‘jolly school’ moral-lesson books from our childhood, while simultaneously warping the tropes of more recent supernatural academy titles. If David Cronenberg had been Headmaster of the X-Men’s School for Gifted Youngsters (with David Lynch as Deputy).

For this is, without any doubt at all, body horror. Cassandra Khaw’s writing is almost literally viscous, dripping with description and with more words that were new to me than I’ve encountered since ‘Gormenghast’. Yes, I enjoyed pausing to look them up, because every single time it was worth it. This woman ADORES language and it’s infectious.

We have a school who takes students with unique abilities – whether voluntarily or not. We have nods to the usual Teenage Cliques, but taking them to bloody extremes. Because this school exists to prepare its students for the world… as food.

On Graduation Day, the faculty of Hellebore turns on its young charges and begins to consume them. Some escape into the corridors and classrooms; others aren’t so lucky. A little ‘Lord of the Flies’, except rescue is absolutely not coming. This is about survival, but still through a lense of teenage hormones and intensely dangerous powers.

I learned early on never to assume I knew what would happen, because the twists are as knotted as the school itself. Enemies become allies, lovers are revealed and rejected, and trust is something quickly cast aside.

Through it all, the language held me in its grip, monstrous and beautiful, as I imagined what I would do in such a scenario while empathising with teens forced to act like (and so against) homicidal psychopaths. There’s wordplay here that would make my school English teachers weep. I adored every moment.

This is absolutely one of my Books of the Year, because it immediately crawled beneath my skin and lurked there, drawing me back to the pages when I tried to get away. Would I survive Hellebore too? Genuine question.

Grotesque and compelling, this is a work of horror genius. I highly recommend it, but only if you’re strong enough.

Oh, and whatever you do, do NOT go into the Library.

The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw

Dark academia meets cosmic horror in this murderous tale of betrayal and broken hearts at an elite academy for the gods and monsters of the world, perfect for fans of The Atlas Six, If We Were Villains and Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil.

The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.

Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told when she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled.

Purchase a copy here