Some books stay with you, whether you want them to or not.

‘Ghotikana’ is a 2020 indie published Dark Academia Romance novel written by someone under the pen name ‘RuNyx’. I was alerted to this book by a youtube review and after hearing a quick summary about the book and the book’s protagonist I decided to check it out myself. Full disclosure, I didn’t start reading it thinking I would like it. I did pick it up with the intent to have a little goof and a gaff.

I read this in december 2022… It has been ruminating in my brain folds for almost a year and eight months. So in that regards, congrats to RuNyx. Your book is like black mold on my mind. I don’t want it there, but it is kind of my fault that it got there to begin with.

First things first. This book has some good parts and some less good parts about it. On Storygraph I gave it a solid two star rating. Which is only barely failing, if you think about it. My friend, who is more kind and benevolent than me gave it three stars. It’s really a what you consider to be most important in a book, really.

One of those good parts is the general mystery premise. It’s genuinely set up well, it got a couple twists and turns that made me gasp,… I liked it. If this had been the primary subject of the book and if it had been executed to a fulfilling conclusion, I would’ve rated the book higher than two stars.

The premise is thus:

After having been secluded for the majority of her life, Corvina Clemm receives a mysterious invitation to an exclusive University called Verenmore in the mountains. There she meets Vad Deverell, her teacher, who she falls instantly and madly in love with. However, strange things keep happening in Verenmore. Continuous disappearances from the school spanning the course of generations loom over her and her peers and what is lurking in the dark woods outside Verenmore castle?

Honestly, not to pat my own back, but the premise I improvised right now does more for the book than the one on Goodreads.

Besides the positive of an engaging mystery plot, this book has received high praises on Goodreads for its steamy scenes. I can only half agree with that praise. More on that later. Unfortunately.

First things first: The protagonist

Corvina Clemm is twenty one years old when going to Verenmore, I believe. She was raised and homeschooled by her schizofrenic mother. Her dad, who was also schizofrenic, took his own life before she was born. I mention the schizofrenia because it is a part of Corvina’s character. Now when I first read this and when it’s explained that Corvina hears voices, I held my breath. Because, lets be honest, not a lot of media treat mental illness with the respect and gravitas it requires; let alone an incredibly stigmatized and horror-ified mental ilness like schizofrenia. But! I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. Corvina at her age isn’t diagnosed with the illness, but was affected by her mother’s deteriorating health to the point that once she was of age, Corvina took the step to have her mother hospitalized for her own well-being. But there’s also an acknowledgement that her mother did the best she could under her circumstances. It was nice to see the illness not be stigmatized or demonized by the narrative.

So Corvina hears voices, but only when it’s plot relevant. The book mentions how she hears one of them quite often, but in the narrative, they come very little into play and then only to get Corvina from one place to the next.

Besides that she has purple eyes. “That’s not a personality trait!”, I hear you exclaim. You’d think so, wouldn’t you. You’d think…

But no it gets mentionned constantly and multiple times in every chapter. One time it’s referenced in a way that feels like it was a direct curse on my psyche. More on that later.

Corvina is insanely uncurious. For a protagonist in a mystery narrative, she really does not care about finding things out. Any and all information she needs is just kind of handed to her and every plot point just happens to her.

The love interest

I hate this man forreal.

Maybe I’m just too bisexual to get the appeal, maybe I’ve gotten too old; but, from the very first page this man cursed his presence with, my very first instinct was “absolutely not”.

Vad Deverell is in his late twenties, and Corvina’s english lit teacher (why is it always english lit?). He gets introduced with grey eyes and a grey streak in his hair, which I headcanon he dyes himself and then lies that it’s natural premature greying. I have nothing in the text that proves this except for that it’s just something a guy like him would do to make him sound weary and brooding.

He’s incredibly dominant, but not in the fun way. Just in the way that would have you see a therapist for a few years. He does the romance classic “stay away from me, I’m dangerous” yada yada, while he continues to stalk her throughout the castle. The first time Corvina sees him is when he’s playing the piano in the early morning hours loud enoug that it wakes Corvina (and only Corvina) up, who has been sleeping several stories below.

That alone makes me hate this man. Inconsiderate.

They have sex, which is adequately written. The dirty talk though? I wish I could bleach it from my mind. I’ll only put in one excerpt underneath.

Magic eyes, magic pussy.

This line right here? It haunts me to this day. Read it in 2022

Vad is always in control of information. Towards the latter half of the book, you’ll learn that their first interaction in class or when Corvina is woken up by his playing the piano isn’t the first time Vad has met Covina. He actually met her in the mental hospital after she had checked herself in because she was undergoing treatment herself. She does not remember this. And he does not tell her this until way later and after cajoles her in traumadumping on him while he eats her out on a piano. At this point she knows almost nothing of him and he is in possession of vulnerable information on her. He is her teacher, he’s older, and later on it actually turns out he owns Verenmore. I just find their dynamic to be kind of disturbing.

The plot

It’s difficult to me to determine if the intent was for the mystery narrative to be the main focus or the romance. On all accounts, the mystery plot is more intriguing.

I’m not going to recap everything that happens. The grand lines of the plot are here, but I’m focussing on the things that gave me pauze.

So Corvina gets an invite to Verenmore after her mother is checked into the hospital. Verenmore is supposed to be this university boarding school type of institution, close to a small town and on top of a mountain. It’s geared towards “special” people. I don’t… remember what that means exactly, but I don’t think it has to involve supernatural shenanigans per se. It’s just like, extraordinary young people are allowed to go there and it’s on invite only. Corvina decides to go. The logistics of this damn castle on this damn mountain has given me sleepless nights. The townies don’t want to go near it because it’s strange. No busses go there. There’s no train, no cable lift. Corvina gets there by taxi and the trip is several hours. Later we’re told ver batim that the university has about 2000 students. Pauze for effect. How does everyone get up that damn mountain? Corvina has to go to town in a later chapter and she has to carpool with Vad to get there because there is no other way of transportation. Even more later, we learn that most students don’t go home for the holidays or for summer. So they never leave the mountain? Ever?? I’m so confused. The amount of food it would take to feed 2k students year round. The amount of maintenance it would take to keep the grounds presentable.

Verenmore doesn’t seem to be smart with money, though, because for the masquerade it holds it commissions custom dresses and tuxes for every student, tailored to everyone’s specific tastes. In the span of a week or two. And the students don’t need to pay anything. Actually, I don’t think Corvina has paid anything at all to attend this school.

Listen, I’m not saying that I need a full financial plan, itinerary, list of accomodations, etc. to enjoy a book. I do have the ability to suspend my disbelief. There are, however, some things that are so outside of mundane reality that it stops me in my tracks. Do all of these things have to do with something magical or supernatural, or has the author simply not thought this deeply about how things work in the real world?

Side rant over. Corvina arrives to the castle, gets outside of the car and the first girl she meets is named Jade. Jade just… shows up? Randomly and out of nowhere. She had recently ran away and was returning to the school. Why Jade appears out of the mist like some sort of omen is explained later, but what isn’t explained is why nobody asks some very appropriate questions like “where did you go on this mountain”, “Where have you been?”, “How did you get back?”. The university’s student representative just shows up, wags her finger, says to Jade that she better not run away again, and that’s it. Jade and Corvina room together and the become besties.

Corvina meets Vad during her first English Lit class in the weirdest way possible. Let me paint you a picture. You’re in class on the first day of school. You have to do those godawful “stand up and tell something about yourself” things. You give your name, your major, your interests… Meanwhile the professor is just fully looking away, eyefucking one of the students in the back row. That’s what happened. Following this instance, Corvina and Vad have this instant chemistry and start a kind of relationship. Vad is just fantasy fodder to be honest. If you aren’t into the “older, mysterious, brooding, intellectual” archetype, you’re probably not going to be into their whole thing. Besides that archetype there’s not really a lot of substance going on with him.

Anyways, Corvina learns that this year, a Black Ball will be organized in the castle, a masked event that only takes place once every five years.

And every Black Ball someone dissapears.

This is the mystery plot of the book and I quite liked this. Strange things start happening, Corvina hears things, someone takes their own life. Someone has taken their own life before Corvina even got there and it’s rumored that Vad was involved. The castle is surrounded by woods, there’s a cabin there and Corvina finds it locked but there’s movement inside, etc. etc.

At the climax of the book, The Black Ball arrives and something strange does start to happen but it’s mainly everyone getting in a frisky mood. Vad, the owner of the castle and the actual factual headmaster of the school, folds like a cardhouse and immediately whisks away Corvina to go bang in the woods and then bang in the piano room. Then they just hang out until somebody informs them that two students have gone missing, Jade and Corvina’s pseudo-rival whose name I don’t remember. Vad doesn’t seem to feel even a little bit responsible that two of his students have gone missing while he was banging their friend on a piano. Honestly, this man doesn’t emote a single time except for when he’s horny or angry.

The plottwist comes when it’s revealed that Jade is responsible for kidnapping the student, and the two suicides of this year and the year before. Well, I should say “Jade”, because it turns out she kidnapped and murdered actual Jade and took her place. Actual Jade’s body was found in that cabin in the woods and it turns out she’s been dead for two years. We never learn “Jade”‘s real name, but we do learn she’s Vad’s relative and has a pseudo-incestuous obsession with him. Their grandparents did ritual sacrifices in the woods around the castle (the first dissapearances) and “Jade” is a bit obsessed with that legacy. I think that’s supposed to be her motive? She drugged her old roommate and told her to walk off a ledge and then did the same with another student.

“But Li”, I hear you ask, “Obviously the dissapearances during the Black Ball have something to do with this legacy. Maybe the grandparents and “Jade”‘s parents continued the rituals!”

I admire your will to make sense of things, but no. All of these “Jade” shenanigans are entirely separate from the Black Ball dissapearances.

“And the disappearances over the last century” Corvina asked. “Did you or your grandma have something to do with that”
Jade shook her head. “Nope, I genuinely have no idea what happens on Black Ball. My grandma doesn’t either. We both wondered quite a lot about it.” (p.245/268)

Do we get an answer to the mysterious dissapearances during Black Ball. Dissapearances that happen regularly, every five years?

We do not.

And that’s why this book doesn’t get three stars.

I was left with narrative blue balls. We’ve been reading about this girl smashing her professor on any and all available surfaces while being hit over the head with how purple her eyes are, while the threat of Black Ball tragedies looms over her head and we get nothing. She never even tried to solve it. All she did was getting railed by a rich dude!

The epilogue is just her and Vad having a dog, and Corvina being like “ohh I hope that doesn’t happen again, but I guess we’ll see.”

I’m so angry.

The afterword

Runyx explains they wrote this book based on own experiences when attending a boarding school where strange, unexplainable things happened that she never got closure on, and that sometimes that’s okay.

And I agree. Except the strange, unexplainable things they wrote about weren’t, like, shadow people or energy balls or things moving on its own or anything like that. It’s people disappearing, their bodies never to be found again.

This, as a reader, is absolutely unacceptable to me. And it’s why this book hasn’t left my mind. I hate that it’s there, by the way. I would love to scrub this from my consciousness.

In conclusion

There is no conclusion. All I can hope for is that I excorsised a bit of this book out of my brain.

This review, if we can call it that, is no attack on the author’s devotion or skill. In the end, they did write a whole book and self-published it and that in itself is an accomplishment. I haven’t read other works of theirs and maybe this really is the odd one out.

As alway, if there are any typo’s/grammatical errors, I’m sorry. In my defense, I wrote this in a fugue stat.

Have a wonderfull life, and goodbye.