The Ninth House- by Leigh Bardugo

 Let me start this post with telling you how much I loved Shadow and Bones which is another great book by Leigh Bardugo. I remember seeing somewhere online that they were going to make this Netflix series about a fantasy book. Usally when they do that I have to run out and by the book before I see the series. Harry Potter, The Witcher, Lord of the Rings, all the same. Had to read the book before I saw it. I go out and get the book and it was one of those books that you just can't put down. Loved it. I heard Six of Crows is the same way. Haven't gotten that one yet but I will. 

So, when I found out that Leigh Bardugo had written another series that everyone was raving about and there was a soon to be sequel, you know I'm there. It's a little different than Shadow and Bone in that the settings are completely different. This one is set in this day and age where Shadow and Bone was more of a medieval times feel to it. It's about the occult practices of "the Ancient Eight". You might remember the Skull and Bones house from the movie, "The Skulls" with Joshua Jackson and Paul Walker. Or maybe I'm just dating myself really bad here. Anyways, it s secret society within Yale that has a lot of famous members such as George W. Bush and William Taft. The society is said to be practitioners of the occult and have meeting where they have sacrifices. This is all rumored but the Ninth House is about if it wasn't all rumors and was true. 

The book takes you along the life of Galaxy "Alex" Stern. You know your mom is a hippy when your name is Galaxy. So, all her life she can see ghost. They call them greys in the book because most people who can see them are in black and white and not in color. For the most part she is able to ignore them, however, sometimes she is not. After an accident, she is approached by the Lethe, which are the overseers and regulators of the ancient eight. As an overseer they set all the protect spells and monitor for grey activity. During one of the houses "activities" there was some issues and weird activity but the greys. Later that same evening, Alex is called to the scene of a murder. Come to find out the murder occurred the same time that the strange activity occurred during the meeting. 

You follow Alex through her investigation of the murder to find out if the two are linked together and find out more interesting and terrifying findings as well as make some friends with some greys along the way. Overall, I would give this book a 4/5 stars. I have a hard time with books that break up the story line into past and present. Ran into that same issue with Game of Thrones. Once i got into the book a little bit it was easier but when they do that it's easy to forget who the characters and follow the story line. I do look forward to the next book, "Hell Bent" which is out now.