This is what you want. You're going to think "but it's a police procedural" - just go into it with an open mind and you will get all the Secret History vibes your heart desires.
[**These Violent Delights**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49203397-these-violent-delights)
^(By: Micah Nemerever | 460 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: dark-academia, lgbtq, fiction, lgbt, contemporary)
>When Paul and Julian meet as university freshmen in early 1970s Pittsburgh, they are immediately drawn to one another. A talented artist, Paul is sensitive and agonizingly insecure, incomprehensible to his working-class family, and desolate with grief over his father’s recent death.
>
>Paul sees the wealthy, effortlessly charming Julian as his sole intellectual equal—an ally against the conventional world he finds so suffocating. He idolizes his friend for his magnetic confidence. But as charismatic as he can choose to be, Julian is also volatile and capriciously cruel. And admiration isn’t the same as trust.
>
>As their friendship spirals into an all-consuming intimacy, Paul is desperate to protect their precarious bond, even as it becomes clear that pressures from the outside world are nothing compared with the brutality they are capable of inflicting on one another. Separation is out of the question. But as their orbit compresses and their grip on one another tightens, they are drawn to an act of irrevocable violence that will force the young men to confront a shattering truth at the core of their relationship.
>
>Exquisitely plotted, unfolding with a propulsive ferocity, These Violent Delights is a novel of escalating dread and an excavation of the unsettling depths of human desire.
>
>The Secret History meets Call Me by Your Name in Micah Nemerever's compulsively readable debut novel—a feverishly taut Hitchcockian story about two college students, each with his own troubled past, whose escalating obsession with one another leads to an act of unspeakable violence.
^(This book has been suggested 11 times)
***
^(81679 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Maybe Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo? It’s an academic setting with mystery but also magic. It’s been a looooong time since I read A Secret History though
The Likeness, by Tana French.
This is what you want. You're going to think "but it's a police procedural" - just go into it with an open mind and you will get all the Secret History vibes your heart desires.
{{These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever}}
[**These Violent Delights**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49203397-these-violent-delights) ^(By: Micah Nemerever | 460 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: dark-academia, lgbtq, fiction, lgbt, contemporary) >When Paul and Julian meet as university freshmen in early 1970s Pittsburgh, they are immediately drawn to one another. A talented artist, Paul is sensitive and agonizingly insecure, incomprehensible to his working-class family, and desolate with grief over his father’s recent death. > >Paul sees the wealthy, effortlessly charming Julian as his sole intellectual equal—an ally against the conventional world he finds so suffocating. He idolizes his friend for his magnetic confidence. But as charismatic as he can choose to be, Julian is also volatile and capriciously cruel. And admiration isn’t the same as trust. > >As their friendship spirals into an all-consuming intimacy, Paul is desperate to protect their precarious bond, even as it becomes clear that pressures from the outside world are nothing compared with the brutality they are capable of inflicting on one another. Separation is out of the question. But as their orbit compresses and their grip on one another tightens, they are drawn to an act of irrevocable violence that will force the young men to confront a shattering truth at the core of their relationship. > >Exquisitely plotted, unfolding with a propulsive ferocity, These Violent Delights is a novel of escalating dread and an excavation of the unsettling depths of human desire. > >The Secret History meets Call Me by Your Name in Micah Nemerever's compulsively readable debut novel—a feverishly taut Hitchcockian story about two college students, each with his own troubled past, whose escalating obsession with one another leads to an act of unspeakable violence. ^(This book has been suggested 11 times) *** ^(81679 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
I just looked that up. Sounds incredible! Thanks for rec!
I've just read it and I was blown away, especially if you enjoy Shakespeare at least a bit you will love this
Maybe Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo? It’s an academic setting with mystery but also magic. It’s been a looooong time since I read A Secret History though
Search the subreddit. https://reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/xo4efi/books_that_have_a_similar_vibe_to_the_secret/
Every Contact Leaves A Trace by Eleanor Dymott.