YA author Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows; Shadow and Bone) makes her adult debut in an atmospheric novel that blends horror and mystery in a storied Ivy League setting.
A drop-out, former drug user and the lone survivor of a brutal multiple murder, 20-year-old Galaxy "Alex" Stern may look like a typical freshman, but she's nothing like her sheltered, carefully cultivated classmates. Recruited for her ability to see ghosts, Alex works for Lethe, the organization that oversees Yale's Ancient Eight secret societies and the arcane rituals they use to garner power and shape futures. While an Ivy League education in the arcane sounds like a dream, Alex finds the reality more difficult than expected. She's failing her classes, the local ghosts have grown aggressive and her mentor, Darlington, a courtly senior student, recently vanished in a mysterious accident. When a local girl is found stabbed to death, clues point to the Ancient Eight, and Alex forms alliances both uneasy and otherworldly to seek the truth.
Hogwarts has nothing on Bardugo's alternate version of Yale. With its thriller-velocity pacing, Ninth House's strength lies in the blend of dark fantasy with real-world college worries like failed exams, empty bank accounts and on-campus sexual assault. Prickly Alex will win fans with her competence and no-nonsense attitude, and Bardugo's occult world is nothing short of engrossing. Although the murder mystery reaches a resolution, the conclusion leaves Alex and her allies poised to take a dangerous leap into a dark unknown in a sure-to-be coveted sequel. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads