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. 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.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.

Series:

Alex Stern

Book 2

Book Type:

Fantasy / Horror

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Review: Hell Bent
By Leigh Bardugo

“All worlds are open to us. If we are bold enough to enter.”

Galaxy “Alex” Sterns descends into Hell to steal Darlington’s soul in the riveting and imaginative HELL BENT—the follow up to Leigh Bardugo’s NINTH HOUSE.

NINTH HOUSE ends with a major cliffhanger—the realization that Darlington is now a demon in Hell, and Alex’s dogged determination to rescue him from it.

Ill equipped and without resources and permission, Alex—now Virgil of Lethe—plots with Pamela Dawes (Oculus) to find a portal to Hell and conspire to save Darlington. As Alex and Dawes assemble tremulous allies to break into Hell, Yale faculty begins to mysteriously die off, and Alex’s criminal past resurges.

There were so many aspects I loved about this novel. I loved the interplay between Alex’s street-crime underworld and Yale’s entitled secret-society magic. The just-right humor that effervesced the situational gravity. Alex’s willingness to do anything and everything for those she cares about, and how they too show up for her. But most of all, I loved Bardugo’s abundant imagination and vivid worldbuilding, and how these well-drawn, complex characters bring it all to life.

The stakes are high, the monsters, formidable, the magic, grisly, and the story, deeply human in this unputdownable sequel. As with NINTH HOUSE, HELL BENT ends on a cliffhanger, leaving me once again clamoring for more.

I can’t wait.