Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo on January 10, 2023
Genres: Fiction / Fantasy / Paranormal, Fiction / Occult & Supernatural, Fiction / Thrillers / Supernatural
Pages: 448
Format: Paperback
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This is book #2 in the Alex Stern Series (Ninth House) and I went into this one expecting a tidy resolution….not sure that was realistic. If you know Leigh Bardugo, she is the queen of unresolved!
Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.
Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe.
Dawes, Turner, Mercy, & Tripp to confront their darkest secrets and face their own hell on earth. They are the oddest group to assemble as they are the brain, the cop, the friend, the slacker, and Alex who sees dead people.
Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.
I loved the secret world building and the Yale secret society. The quirky cast of characters was definitely interesting. I felt like there was a component missing, but maybe because I expected some romance and didn’t really get that. This was a real life, gritty type of book with secrets and fantasy woven in so this was outside my box. I did enjoy this one but slowly since the next book isn’t out for months!