4.5
-
12,292 ratings
#1 New York Times Bestseller • Goodreads Choice Award Winner
"A tour de force of suspenseful pacing and empathetic writing." ―The New York Times
"All hail the queen of dark academia!" ―NPR
Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. The Ivy League is going straight to hell in the sequel to the smash New York Times bestseller Ninth House from #1 bestselling author Leigh Bardugo.
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.
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ISBN-10
1250859441
ISBN-13
978-1250859440
Print length
496 pages
Language
English
Publisher
Flatiron Books
Publication date
January 09, 2023
Dimensions
5.38 x 1.25 x 8.25 inches
Item weight
14.4 ounces
ASIN :
B09W14K6JB
File size :
10078 KB
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Enabled
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Supported
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Praise for Hell Bent
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2023 by The New York Times, The Week, Kirkus Reviews, PopSugar, Distractify, Booklist Queen, The Nerd Daily, and more!!
"A tour de force of suspenseful pacing and empathetic writing... The beauty of Hell Bent is that for all the bleakness, the sense of wonder somehow still remains." ―The New York Times
"All hail the queen of dark academia!... Ninth House and Hell Bent may be Bardugo's first books for adults, but you'd never know it, or care, because you're so busy following all of the action... you'll want to capture your copy quickly." ―NPR
"[T]he return of protagonist Alex Stern and her mystical version of the Ivy League is very welcome... Watching this damaged loner bring together a squad of ride-and-die friends is endlessly fun, and Bardugo finds new depths to most of her supporting cast." ―The Washington Post
"Gut-wrenching and deeply human, this book will tug at your heartstrings even as it chills you to the bone.... Standing head and shoulders above the already impressive Ninth House, Hell Bent is one of the best fantasy novels of the year.." ―BookPage (starred reviewed)
"Thrilling ... fascinating supporting players ... The taut plot, often grisly magic, lavish scene-setting, and wry humor combine to make this just as un-put-downable as the first installment. Readers will be wowed." –Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Bardugo doesn’t flinch from the dark sides of magic and human nature….This portrait of a survivor’s dogged determination to accomplish her goal will appeal to readers of dark academia, urban fantasy, and horror.” ―Booklist (starred review)
“Vivid, intelligent, and funny at just the right moments, but best of all are the complex characters.” ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Hell Bent is a taut, complexly plotted headrush, stocked full of complicated monsters, entitled academics, and grifters big-time and small." ―Book of the Month
"Hell Bent is just as outrageously good as Ninth House, if not better... This mystery runs on vibes, and the vibes are unparalleled." ―Chicago Review of Books
"Hell Bent is everything fans of Bardugo’s Alex Stern series could have asked for: It’s thematically richer, its characters are more complexly rendered, the darkness lurking at the edges of its New England-set world of privilege is more frightening, and its wit more biting." ―Paste Magazine
"Although Hell Bent is one of my first reads of 2023, I can confidently see it being a top read of the year by the end of it." ―SFF World
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PART I
As Above
November
Alex approached Black Elm as if she were sidling up to a wild animal, cautious in her walk up the long, curving driveway, careful not to show her fear. How many times had she made this walk? But today was different. The house appeared through the bare branches of the trees, as if it had been waiting for her, as if it had heard her footsteps and anticipated her arrival. It didn’t crouch like prey. It stood, two stories of gray stone and peaked roofs, a wolf with paws planted and teeth bared. Black Elm had been tame once, glossy and preening. But it had been left on its own too long.
The boarded-up windows on the second floor made it all so much worse, a wound in the wolf’s side that, left untended, might turn it mad.
She slotted her key into the old back door and slipped into the kitchen. It was chillier inside than out—they couldn’t afford to keep the place heated, and there was no reason to. But despite the cold and the mission she’d come here to fulfill, the room still felt welcoming. Copper pans hung in neat rows above the big vintage stove, bright and ready, eager to be used. The slate floor was spotless, the counters wiped clean and set with a milk bottle full of holly branches that Dawes had arranged just so. The kitchen was the most functional room of Black Elm, alive with regular care, a tidy temple of light. This was how Dawes dealt with all they’d done, with the thing lurking in the ballroom.
Alex had a routine. Well, Dawes had a routine and Alex tried to follow it, and it felt like a rock to cling to now as fear tried to drag her under. Unlock the door, sort the mail and set it on the counter, fill Cosmo’s bowls with fresh food and water. They were usually empty, but today Cosmo had tipped the food on its side, scattering the floor with fish-shaped pellets, as if in protest. Darlington’s cat was mad at being left alone. Or frightened by not being quite so alone anymore. “Or maybe you’re just a picky little shit,” Alex muttered, cleaning up the food. “I’ll pass your comments along to the chef.”
She didn’t like the sound of her voice, brittle in the quiet, but she made herself finish slowly, methodically. She filled the water and food bowls, tossed out the junk mail addressed to Daniel Arlington, and tucked a water bill into her bag that she would take back to Il Bastone. Steps in a ritual, performed with care, but they offered no protection. She considered making coffee. She could sit outside in the winter sunlight and wait for Cosmo to come find her, when he saw fit to leave off prowling the messy tangle of the hedge maze for mice. She could do that. Push her worry and anger aside, and try to solve this puzzle, even though she didn’t want to complete the picture emerging with every new and nasty piece.
Alex glanced up at the ceiling as if she were able to see through the floorboards. No, she couldn’t just sit on the porch and pretend everything was as it should be, not when her feet wanted to climb those stairs, not when she knew she should run the other way, lock the kitchen door behind her, pretend she’d never heard of this place. Alex had come here for a reason, but now she wondered at her stupidity. She wasn’t up to this task. She’d talk to Dawes, maybe even Turner. For once she’d make a plan instead of rushing headlong into disaster.
She washed her hands at the sink, and it was only when she turned to reach for a towel that she saw the open door.
Alex dried her hands, trying to ignore the way her heart had leapt into a run. She had never noticed that door in the butler’s pantry, a gap between the pretty glass cupboards and shelves. She’d never seen it open before. It shouldn’t be open now. Dawes might have left it that way. But Dawes was licking her wounds from the ritual and hiding behind her rows of index cards. She hadn’t been here in days, not since she had set those holly branches on the kitchen counter, making a picture of what life should be. Clean and easy. An antidote to the rest of their days and nights, to the secret above.
She and Dawes never bothered with the butler’s pantry, its rows of dusty dishes and glassware, its soup terrine the size of a small bathtub. It was one of the many vestigial limbs of the old house, disused and forgotten, left to atrophy since Darlington’s disappearance. And they certainly never bothered with the basement. Alex had never even thought about it. Not until now, standing at the kitchen sink, surrounded by tidy blue tiles painted with windmills and tall ships, staring at that black gap, a perfect rectangle, a sudden void. It looked as if someone had simply peeled away part of the kitchen. It looked like the mouth of a grave.
Call Dawes.
Alex leaned against the counter.
Back out of the kitchen and call Turner.
She set down the towel and drew a knife from the block beside the sink. She wished there were a Gray nearby, but she didn’t want to risk calling one to her.
The size of the house, its deep silence, sat heavy around her. She glanced up again, thought of the golden shimmer of the circle, the heat it gave off. I have appetites. Had those words excited her when they should have only made her afraid? Alex walked quietly toward the open door, the absence of a door. How deep had they dug when they’d built this house? She could count three, four, five stone steps leading down into the basement, and then they faded into the dark. Maybe there were no more stairs. Maybe she would take a step, fall, keep falling into the cold.
She felt along the wall for a light switch, then looked up and saw a ratty piece of twine dangling from an exposed bulb. She yanked on it, and the stairs were flooded with warm yellow light. The bulb made a comforting hum.
“Shit,” Alex said on a breath. Her terror dissolved, leaving nothing but embarrassment in its place. Just stairs, a wooden railing, shelves stacked with rags, cans of paint, tools lining the wall. A faint, musty smell rose up from the dark below, a vegetable stink, the hint of rot. She heard the drip of water and the shuffle of what might have been a rat.
She couldn’t quite make out the base of the stairs, but there had to be another switch or bulb below. She could go down there, make sure no one had been rooting around, see if she and Dawes needed to set out traps. But why was the door open?
Cosmo could have nudged it on one of his ratting expeditions. Or maybe Dawes really had popped by and gone down to the basement for something ordinary—weed killer, paper towels. She’d forgotten to close up properly.
So Alex would shut the door. Lock it tight. And if, by chance, there was something down there that wasn’t meant to be down there, it could stay right where it was until she called for reinforcements.
She reached for the twine and paused there, hand gripping the string, listening. She thought she heard—there, again, a soft hiss.
The sound of her name. Galaxy.
“Fuck this.” She knew how this particular movie ended, and there was no way she was going down there.
She yanked on the twine and heard the pop of the bulb, then felt a hard shove between her shoulder blades.
Alex fell. The knife clattered from her hands. She fought the urge to reach out to break her fall and covered her head instead, letting her shoulder take the brunt of it. She half-slid, half-tumbled to the base of the stairs, and hit the floor hard, her breath flooding out of her like a draft through a window. The door above her slammed. She heard the lock click. She was in the dark.
Her heart was racing now. What was down here with her? Who had locked her in with it? Get up, Stern. Get your shit together. Get ready to fight.
Was it her voice she was hearing? Darlington’s?
Hers, of course. Darlington would never swear.
She pushed herself to her feet, bracing her back against the wall. At least nothing could come at her from that direction. It was hard to breathe. Once bones broke, they learned the habit. Blake Keely had cracked two of her ribs less than a year ago. She thought they might be broken again. Her hands were slippery. The floor was wet from some old leak in the walls, and the air smelled fetid and wrong. She wiped her palms on her jeans and waited, her breath coming in ragged gasps. From somewhere in the dark, she heard what might have been a whimper.
“Who’s there?” she rasped, hating the fear in her voice. “Come at me, you cowardly fuck.”
Nothing.
She fumbled for her phone, for light, the blue glow vibrant and startling. She directed the beam over shelves of old paint thinner, tools, boxes labeled in a jagged hand she knew was Darlington’s, dusty crates emblazoned with a circular logo: Arlington & Co. Rubber Boots. Then the light glinted off two pairs of eyes.
Alex choked on a scream, nearly dropping her phone. Not people, Grays, a man and a woman, clinging to each other, trembling with fear. But it wasn’t Alex they were afraid of.
She’d gotten it wrong. The floor wasn’t wet from a leak or rainwater or some old burst pipe. The floor was slick with blood. Her hands were covered in it. She’d smeared it on her jeans.
Two bodies lay heaped on the old brick. They looked like cast-off clothing, piles of rags. She knew those faces. Heaven, to keep its beauty, cast them out.
There was so much blood. New blood. Fresh.
The Grays hadn’t abandoned their bodies. Even in her panic, she knew that was strange.
“Who did this?” she asked them and the woman moaned.
The man pressed a finger to his lips, eyes full of fear as they darted around the basement. His whisper drifted through the dark.
“We’re not alone.”
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Leigh Bardugo
Leigh Bardugo is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ninth House and the creator of the Grishaverse (now a Netflix original series) which spans the Shadow and Bone trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, the King of Scars duology—and much more. Her short fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. She lives in Los Angeles and is an associate fellow of Pauli Murray College at Yale University.
For information on new releases and appearances, sign up for Leigh's newsletter: http://bit.ly/bardugonews.
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Customer reviews
4.5 out of 5
12,292 global ratings
Becket Hampton Warren
5
Complex, Tense Journey to Hell and Back
Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2023
Verified Purchase
The follow-up to Ninth House, Hell Bent tells the story of Alex Stern’s determination to restore the Virgil to her Dante at Lethe. Lethe is ninth house introduced in the first novel, the oversight house at Yale University, where long standing tradition means that eight powerful houses, or societies, use the arcane and magic to alter reality or prognosticate or otherwise guarantee their alumni continue to live lives of privilege and prosperity. Lethe observes their rituals and workings to keep them both unobserved by outside eyes, and also undisturbed by the occult, any ghostly forces that would interrupt or play havoc with the magic integral to the ceremonies and rites being conducted in secret by these eight houses inside Yale University’s venerable tombs and classroom buildings.
Alex Stern’s mentor at Lethe,Daniel Arlington, is sucked through a portal of some kind in the middle of the first book. With the assistance of Lethe’s Oculus, Pam Dawes, Alex is determined to rescue Darlington and bring him home. The circumstances surrounding this random accident are suspicious and Alex isn’t having it. Working against this goal are many obstacles, ranging from past to present. There’s blowback from Alex’s lurid and unsettling past as a strung-out teen in California; there’s the distrust and resistance Alex and Dawes encounter from the adults in the Lethe organization, from the Lethe-liaison police detective with whom they worked to solve a murder in book one, Ninth House, to the faculty and university administrators within whose imprimatur they must work, who discourage investigation and sadly shake their heads and write off a young man’s loss—his assumed death—as an unfortunate hazard of the job.
Determined as Alex and the reluctant team of other characters who join the quest are to bring Darlington home, their objective becomes enormously daunting, nearly unthinkable, when it becomes clear that they must steal back Darlington’s soul from hell itself, and that they won’t be the first Yale students to make the trip to the underworld and back. What price will they pay to save Darlington, Lethe’s “golden boy” who was intentionally sucked into the demonic realm? The action is fast-paced, urgent, and suspenseful. It cost me as a reader to go slowly, to savor the story instead of devour it. This novel builds a rich and layered world with a strong central narrative objective (getting Darlington’s soul back) which is further enriched by all sorts of extraneous and intertwined complications: —like the reappearance of Eitan, the West Coast Israeli drug kingpin who ensures Alex’s compliance in working for him by obliquely threatening her mom’s well-being; —like Alex’s realization that the spirits of the dead, the Grays she’s always seen, can speak to and through her and can even momentarily hijack her body to talk to living people; —like the fact that human souls can be ripped out of bodies, and a such a body can return to the regular world, sans soul, to hang out in a warded circle in his childhood home, naked, beautiful, bearing glowing golden badges of demonic indenture, featuring horns, and a robust erection; —like the fact that vampires actually exist(!); and —like the inclusion of Alex’s roommate, Mercy, who has not hitherto been aware of the magic suffused into the fabric of her university, into the elaborate Darlington rescue plan— all these twists and turns, make the story both more relatable—life throws complications at us constantly, even when we are in the midst of Big Things—and also more complex, lending the book the wonderful, fully-developed richness that readers so love and expect from Leigh Bardugo’s novels.
This second Alex Stern novel is an easier read than Ninth House, I thought, because the time line is relatively straightforward. I reread Ninth House before launching into Hell Bent (I often reread a novel before I read its sequel), and I was once again struck by Leigh Bardugo’s use of a wildly fractured narrative time line. The reader has to piece together what has occurred to get to Alex’s enrollment at Yale, then figure out Daniel’s a sense and what caused it, and how the past has shaped him almost as much as Alex’s has shaped her. Reading it feels disjointed, complicated, disassociated, something like being in a fugue state—like waking up on a stained mattress and not knowing how one’s best friend could be no longer alive, or how the room around one became splintered and wrong and littered with the blood-splattered remains of people one knew, all while one was apparently unconscious.
I loved this novel, its predecessor, and I am eager to find out what happens next, though the wait for book three will no doubt be agonizing. I recommend this novel—and this author—wholeheartedly. Hell Bent is 100% great read.
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36 people found this helpful
Amazon Customer
5
Fantastic follow up to Ninth House
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2024
Verified Purchase
As usual the author does not disappoint! Fantastic follow up to the first book. Her plot and character development was amazing. If you haven’t read the first book, do that first. You won’t know what’s going on if you don’t.
Kate
5
Great follow up book to Ninth Gate
Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2024
Verified Purchase
I love the world she is creating in this series. Magic, hell, vampires. Yes please!
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