Hell Bent: The global sensation from the creator of Shadow and Bone
£8.70£9.50 (-8%)
Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell.
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.
Read more
Additional information
| Publisher | Gollancz, 1st edition (9 Jan. 2024) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 496 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1473228034 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1473228030 |
by lyn
Love the book and the writer, so I pre-ordered the book. To get one asap. But instead the delivery was delayed and was a 2nd edition… no happy with the seller .. disapointed … will buy dirext from now on.
by Readinginpyjamas
Hell Bent is my most anticipated book of this year, and it did not disappoint! It picked up where Ninth House left off and was one crazy ride. The writing was excellent, and the plot captivating. I couldn’t stop reading, had me on the edge of my seat.
Alex and Co. embark on a dangerous quest to save Darlington from hell. They need to fully trust each other in order for their plan to succeed, but it’s not that easy when everyone hides their own dark secrets and ambitions.
The plotline is filled with dark themes, titillating magic and mystery which combined create a stunning and gripping fantasy. Alex Stern is a phenomenal heroine. Her character is multi-layered and complex, but not perfect. Her strengths and insecurities make her incredibly relatable. I loved the way her arc was written. It felt so honest/real. Also, the secondary characters were brilliant, the author did a great job of presenting their backstories, which further streamlined the narrative. As for Darlington, the gentleman of Lethe has me completely enamoured.
I really hope there’s going to be another book in this series because the open ending/cliffhanger left me hungry for more!
by Tia EM
One of the most perfect sequels I could ever ask for!
The book arrived in gorgeous condition. To say I ordered the bog standard hardback I was astounded by the details on the end pages (gorgeous artwork of a snake and a rabbit) and the red foiling on the naked hardcover was a nice touch (and matches my first edition of Ninth House!)
Loved it, loved it, loved it.
by Book-addicted
Look, this is a long book (approx 500 pages, happily!). And it was only published yesterday. So I’m definitely not through it yet – and don’t plan to be for a while as I’m deliberately reading slowly and savoring every world of this long-awaited sequel to Ninth House. But I’m so overjoyed to be back in the ‘magical Yale’ universe, and to spend time again with these people (‘characters’ seems too superficial a word) that I have missed so much – and this time it’s the glowing evocation of the mood and tells of the seasons that is unexpectedly moving for me, as well as the good company.
Plus so far the storyline has definitely been worth the wait!
So I just wanted to offer early thanks to the author for this treasure ????
“Stories exist in all worlds. They are immutable. Like gold”.
by Smell.that.book
Absolutely faultless work.
Hell Bent is on par with Ninth House. I wouldn’t say one is better than the other, because I love both of them equally – but they are both very different!
The world that Leigh Bardugo has created within the Ninth House series is truly special. Both Ninth House and Hell Bent are in my top five books that I’ve read this year, and I’d say the series itself is one of my all time favourites that I’ve read to date.
I didn’t want Hell Bent to end. The characters; the world building; the writing style; everything is perfect – it’s impossible to fault this book.
The main protagonist Alex Stern is incredibly likeable, and I find her to be relatable because she is REAL. She has flaws, she’s done bad things – some of which she doesn’t even have guilt over – but she remains intrepid and I can’t help but admire her for it. She is entirely human; she is the definition of realism. Alex has an indomitable spirit despite the cards she has been dealt, and it motivates me to keep pushing through difficult times in my own life. If Alex is fearless enough to plough headfirst into the pits of Hell to save someone she loves, I can get myself through a bad day. Let’s also not forget that each character has a place in this story, with their own distinctive personalities.
This book identifies how life really isn’t perfect, and that there are bad people in the world and bad things happen, but ultimately if you have special people around you who truly care for you and love you, you can be unstoppable.
Judging by the ending I think a third book is in the pipeline… THANK GOD. I wasn’t quite ready for this series to end just yet.
Violence; death; portals to Hell; copious amounts of wit – what’s not to love?
by Mrs. L. J. Whitehead
Loved this – found the first book a bit clunky and hard to get into as lots of locations etc. and somewhat over complex, but this brought everything together beautifully. Loved the character development of some of the minor players. Everything Leigh Bardugo writes is perfection in my view – love her work
by Anniemac
I adore this series. Alex Stern is surely one of the most complicated dark heroines ever written, never over-stated, always controlled, as we have come to expect from Leigh Bardugo. The latest Yale adventure was a wild ride from start to finish – will we ever see Darlington again and how could it be that his character has such an impact on the reader that you feel yourself pining for him while rooting for Alex.
The whole world building is so subtle and clever, it doesn’t feel like fantasy at all. I find the whole Yale context incredibly fresh and different to anything I have read before and, as an avid reader, I love that Leigh Bardugo is keeping me on my toes and giving me something completely different.
This is for people who like their humour dark (I literally guffawed a number of times) and their characters to be intelligent and complicated.
I am totally hooked and hoping that this series runs and runs.
by m
Ninth House was outrageously entertaining. Fantastic characters, plot twists, and world building. To have waited this long for the sequel and to be left wanting is disappointing. This is a good book in part, but never a great one, and there are whole sections that are bordering on tedious. Wanted to love it, and just about liked it.