I want to watch her build (and raze) castles in it for a hundred more books. The sandbox Bardugo has built for herself-one of looming tombs and papery autumn skies, haunted by the searchlight eyes of the dead-feels limitless. But the enchantments she finds have claws and teeth and puppet strings, manipulated by some very wicked hands. In these pages Alex embarks on the journey all of us have longed for: she steps nimbly through the looking-glass, into a world of untold wonders. But after the murder of a local girl and the possibly related disappearance of her closest Lethe colleague, Alex learns how far the societies will go to avoid policing.

Lethe was formed to serve as supernatural sheriff to the university’s eight secret societies-practitioners of arcane magic. She drifts early into a world of dangerous men, her life on the skids until she makes a devil’s deal: in exchange for a free ride to Yale, she’ll use her ghostly ability to work for Lethe House. Since she was a kid Alex Stern has been able to see ghosts, an awful ability that’s precluded her attempts to lead a normal life. It’s a tale of threadbare survival, a pick-up-the-jagged-pieces story that kicks off long after its hard-baked heroine’s life has already fallen apart. All of that can be found in her adult debut, but Ninth House ticks with a different kind of heartbeat.

I adore Leigh Bardugo’s YA books-the shippable characters (I’m a Kanej ride or die), the deeply lived-in worlds, the breakneck audacity of her plotting.

Ninth house leigh bardugo