Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rules for Ruin | 2025 | Mimi Matthews | Buy |
| 2 | The Marriage Method | 2025 | Mimi Matthews | Buy |
The Crinoline Academy series by Mimi Matthews is set at the Benevolent Academy for the Betterment of Young Ladies, a school with a hidden curriculum. Behind its respectable facade, the academy trains women in political sabotage, scandal-making, and manipulation to bring down powerful men who threaten women’s rights. The series has drawn comparisons to “Great Expectations meets Peaky Blinders with Dark Academia.”
Rules for Ruin and The Marriage Method, both published in 2025, each follow a different student or teacher at the academy. The series combines Matthews’s Victorian setting with a darker, more subversive premise than her previous work.