Ninth House

By: Leigh Bardugo

Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang, Michael David Axtell

Length: 16 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

From the author of Shadow and Bone, now a hit NETFLIX series.

The smash New York Times bestseller from Leigh Bardugo, a mesmerizing tale of power, privilege, and dark magic set among the Ivy League elite. This program includes a bonus conversation with the author.

"The best fantasy novel I’ve read in years, because it’s about real people.... Impossible to put down."—Stephen King

"Bardugo’s latest is a must-listen, introducing a haunting, Yale-based occult world populated with gloriously complicated characters.... A win-win-win, honestly."—Paste, best audiobooks of 2019

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most prestigious universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. Their eight windowless “tombs” are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street’s biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

©2019 Leigh Bardugo (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

2019, Goodreads Choice Awards, Winner

2019, NPR Best Book of the Year, Long-listed

2019, Amazon.com Best Books of the Year, Long-listed

2019, NYPL Best Books of the Year, Long-listed

2020, Locus Awards, Short-listed

"Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House rocked my world. I could not get enough of sinewy, ghost-haunted Alex Stern, a heroine for the ages. With a bruised heart and bleeding knuckles, she risks death and damnation—again and again—for the people she cares about. I was cheering her on the whole way: from the first brilliant sentence of this book to the last. More, please, Ms. Bardugo." (Joe Hill, New York Times best-selling author of NOS4A2)

"Ninth House is the best thing I’ve read in a long time. There’s so much magic here that you'll begin to feel it seeping into the room around you as you read, and characters so real you ’ll practically hear their voices in your ear. Leigh Bardugo has written a book so delicious, so twisty, and so immersive I wouldn’t blame you for taking the day off to finish it." (Kelly Link, author of Magic for Beginners and Get in Trouble)

Great read!

This was an AMAZING book!!! Fortgang is my favorite reader! This story had more twist and turns!! I can't wait for her next one!!

Love!

Good readers make the story that much more fun. Bardugo always deeply thrusts you into a world of lush mystery and gothic wonder.

Incredible

Took me awhile to get into, but once I did I was hooked! Incredible world building.

Really loved this book. I can only hope for more.

I hope this story continues. I did love the book and author. Very different, of course, from Shadow and Bones series, but wonderful all the same.

love it

loved the book this is my first of many from this author i hope to find more

A step beyond

I have enjoyed Leigh's books before hand, but I enjoyed them as a generic fantasy, well executed but that was it.
The Ninth house was completely different. It was steps above. Showing a mastery of character development, and narative

Good listen

It's rare when the ending of a book is the best part. It was well narrated and the first audiobook I've ever completed.

Loved this book!!!

I can’t wait for the rest of this series! Leigh and Lauren do not disappoint! I am a huge fan of the Griesha-verse books and this is so different yet still Leigh Bardugo! Fantastic read I couldn’t put it down!!!!

The Reluctant Hero Sees Dead People

I guess I borrowed part of the title from The Sixth Sense. Sorry.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, having never listened to anything from Leigh Bardugo. I guess this is going to become a book series, and all I can say is: I look forward to it.

I'll try not to be spoiler-ish in this review because there are a lot of twists and turns that make the ending of this book a pure joy.

First, I appreciate the main character, the hero, the Reluctant Hero, in the shape of Alex. She doesn't want to be where she is. She doesn't want to have this ability to see ghosts. She reads, as an anti-social don't-give-a-damn type, and it shows--and she grows on you.

The author sectioned the book in a way that gradually reveals this character and the past tragedies that have shaped her persona and her trajectory in this novel. Her life, her purpose, is revealed in layers, and that is good.

Early on in the narration, the job is split between two narrators, and if I have one criticism (they were both fine narrators), I'd lose the male narrator. He isn't necessary. Lauren Fortang, the female narrator, has a good command of her vocal characterizations, and the odd back-and-forth, which ends maybe midway through the book, isn't necessary. But, as I had indicated, both narrators were solid, and when the male narrator spoke, he was fine. I simply thought that having the two of them were unnecessary,

I like the pace of the reveals as it helped to build suspense for the story, while also aiding in character development, even the minor characters, as, it seems, nobody may seem to be who they are.

Lately, I've been reading all novels through the eyes of Joseph Campbell's "Hero With a Thousand Faces," to see how writers vary the story and characters of the "Hero's Journey" into something unique and wonderful. I have to say that I appreciate the "Special World" that Ms. Bardugo created here, a sense of reality mixed in with the fictional and fantastic. It makes me want to visit New Haven, CT, which frankly, wasn't on my radar--except being the home to Yale University.

This book had been sitting on my shelf for a while. I'm not sure why I hesitated initially, but I am glad to have read it now.

Looking forward to reading more!

Another amazing novel

Already loved this author and her YA but this was a game changer! Such amazing writing and I’m so sad I have to wait for the next book