In Alex Stern, Bardugo has created a heroine you’ll trust to have your back on a journey into Hell-and the kind of survivor you can count on to lead you out again. Its world is an intoxicating mashup of pitch-dark academia and the kind of urban fantasy that has blood under all twenty of its nails. Hell Bent is a taut, complexly plotted headrush, stocked full of complicated monsters, entitled academics, and grifters big-time and small. Meanwhile, the wolves of her past keep calling, most pressingly a dangerous drug lord who sees her as a weapon to exploit. Recruited for her ability to see ghosts, Alex is charged with managing the societies’ rituals and navigating their bureaucrats-all while keeping her hunt for a Hell door under wraps. Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo 3.4 (23) eBook 14.99 BN Exclusive 26.99 Hardcover 24.99 Paperback 19.99 eBook 14.99 Audiobook 27.05 Large Print 35.99 Audio CD 44.99 View All Available Formats & Editions Instant Purchase Available on Compatible NOOK Devices and the free NOOK Apps. She’s entering her second year at Yale, where she’s enrolled at the leisure of Lethe House, oversight body of Yale’s magic-wielding secret societies.

In this impeccably titled sequel, Alex is determined to drag him out. When we last saw Leigh Bardugo’s hard-as-coffin-nails antiheroine Alex Stern, in supernatural barn burner Ninth House, she was reeling from the loss of mentor Darlington, recently banished to literal Hell. I should add this doesn’t always have good intentions. Enter Hell Bent: decidedly unmerry, dark as a devil’s deal, and exactly what I want to sink into this January. Hell Bent brings readers back into the weird dark world of Yale University, where those in power utilize magic and occult methods in order to make changes as they see fit. In other words, an antidote to all things merry and bright. Of course there are SIGNIFICANT obstacles, with the fact that Darlington is now part demon being a BIG one. The story centers around Alex and her friends trying to bring Darlington back from Hell. I always head into the new year with a taste for something bracing-a gin gimlet over hot buttered rum, a swim in a cold pool over a lounge in a fuzzy blanket. In any case, Hell Bent was an excellent read overall, perfect for those who LOVE dark academia and thrillers.

Hell bent a novel