# Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

### Ninth House

**Leigh Bardugo** · Alex Stern, book 1 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/ninth-house](https://houseofareader.com/books/ninth-house)

Yale's secret societies practise real magic, and the scholarship student sent to police them can see ghosts without any help. Dark academia with actual teeth — the class rage is as sharp as the horror.

- Spice: 2/5 — Warm. Brief and infrequent. This is a horror novel with a romance somewhere behind it.
- Romance prominence: 2/5
- Plot: 5/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 5/5
- Writing craft: 5/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: morally-grey-mmc, academy, slow-burn, found-family
- Creatures: demons, humans
- Setting: Yale University and the tombs beneath it
- POV: third person, dual
- Ending: no happy ending, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: sexual assault, drug use, graphic violence, gore, child abuse
- Best for: Readers who want dark academia where the darkness is the point, not the aesthetic.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

## Sources

- https://openlibrary.org/search?q=Ninth+House+Leigh+Bardugo

## What to read next

- [The Atlas Six](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-atlas-six) by Olivie Blake — spice 2/5. Readers who want dark academia that is mostly clever people arguing.
- [A Dowry of Blood](https://houseofareader.com/books/a-dowry-of-blood) by S.T. Gibson — spice 3/5. Readers who want dark romantasy with prose that would survive being read aloud.
- [House of Earth and Blood](https://houseofareader.com/books/crescent-city) by Sarah J. Maas — spice 4/5. ACOTAR readers who want a real plot to hold the romance up.
- [The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-invisible-life-of-addie-larue) by V.E. Schwab — spice 2/5. Readers who want a devil love interest and a standalone they can finish tonight.

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Ratings are editorial judgements applied against a published scale at
https://houseofareader.com/lessons/spice, not aggregated reader scores. Editorial policy:
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