Others: Leaning positive Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her? Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.
Lists: …
Deborah Harkness
2011 · 650 pages · 11 reviews
Others: Leaning positiveAn epic, richly inventive, historically sweeping, magical romance. When historian Diana Bishop opens an alchemical manuscript in the Bodleian Library, it's an unwelcome intrusion of magic into her carefully ordered life. Though Diana is a witch of impeccable lineage, the violent death of her parents while she was still a child convinced her that human fear is more potent than any witchcraft. Now Diana has unwittingly exposed herself to a world she's kept at bay for years; one of powerful witches, creative, destructive daemons and long-lived vampires. Sensing the significance of Diana's discovery, the creatures gather in Oxford, among them the enigmatic Matthew Clairmont, a vampire genticist. Diana is inexplicably drawn to Matthew and, in a shadowy world of half-truths and old enmities, ties herself to him without fully understanding the ancient line they are crossing. As they begin to unlock the secrets of the manuscript and their feelings for each other deepen, so the fragile balance of peace unravels.
What made the match, strongest first
Auralee Wallace
2021 · 336 pages · 3 reviews
Others: MixedWhen a guest dies in the B&B she helps her aunts run, a young witch must rely on some good old-fashioned investigating to clear her aunt's name in this magical and charming new cozy mystery. For four hundred years, the Warren witches have used their magic to quietly help the citizens of the sleepy New England town of Evenfall thrive. There's never been a problem they couldn't handle. But then Constance Graves--a local known for being argumentative and demanding--dies while staying at the bed and breakfast Brynn Warren maintains with her aunts. At first, it seems like an accident...but it soon becomes clear that there's something more sinister at work, and Aunt Nora is shaping up to be the prime suspect. There's nothing Brynn wants more than to prove Nora's innocence, and it hurts her to know that even two years ago that might have been easier. Brynn, after all, is a witch of the dead--a witch who can commune with ghosts. Ghosts never remember much about their deaths, but Constance might remember something about her life that would help crack the case. But Brynn hasn't used her powers since her husband died, and isn't even sure she still can. Brynn will just have to hope that her aunts' magic and her own investigative skills will lead her to answers--and maybe back to the gift she once thought herself ready to give up forever.
What made the match, strongest first
Alice Hoffman
1995 · 303 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveFor more than two hundred years, the Owens women had been blamed for everything that went wrong in their Massachusetts town. And Gillian and Sally endured that fate as well; as children, the sisters were outsiders. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, but all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape. One would do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they shared brought them back-almost as if by magic...
What made the match, strongest first
Ben Aaronovitch
2011 · 400 pages · 2 reviews
Others: MixedMy name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (and as the Filth to everybody else). My only concerns in life were how to avoid a transfer to the Case Progression Unit - we do paperwork so real coppers don't have to - and finding a way to climb into the panties of the outrageously perky WPC Leslie May. Then one night, in pursuance of a murder inquiry, I tried to take a witness statement from someone who was dead but disturbingly voluble, and that brought me to the attention of Inspector Nightingale, the last wizard in England. Now I'm a Detective Constable and a trainee wizard, the first apprentice in fifty years, and my world has become somewhat more complicated: nests of vampires in Purley, negotiating a truce between the warring god and goddess of the Thames, and digging up graves in Covent Garden ...and there's something festering at the heart of the city I love, a malicious vengeful spirit that takes ordinary Londoners and twists them into grotesque mannequins to act out its drama of violence and despair. The spirit of riot and rebellion has awakened in the city, and it's falling to me to bring order out of chaos - or die trying.
What made the match, strongest first
Caitlin Starling
2021 · 352 pages · 5 reviews
Others: Mostly negativePractical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town. Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man—one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to. In The Death of Jane Lawrence, Caitlin Starling crafts a new kind of gothic horror from the bones of the beloved canon, set in a dark-mirror version of postwar England. This Crimson Peak-inspired story assembles, then upends, every expectation set in place by Shirley Jackson and Rebecca, and will leave readers shaken, desperate to begin again as soon as they are finished.
What made the match, strongest first
Alix E. Harrow
2020 · 528 pages · 5 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveIn 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box. But when the Eastwood sisters―James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna―join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch's movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote―and perhaps not even to live―the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive. There's no such thing as witches. But there will be. An homage to the indomitable power and persistence of women, The Once and Future Witches reimagines stories of revolution, motherhood, and women's suffrage—the lost ways are calling.
What made the match, strongest first
Loved itThis, of course, is the third book to the Ninth House trilogy, a series I've personally enjoyed quite a bit. Over the course of the first two novels, there's lots of mysteries, dangerous situations that our main character has to figure out, great side characters, just really good ambiance.
NeutralI do think the Alex Stern stuff is better than what she's maybe attempted recently... this is going to motivate me to reread 9inth House, which was like fine when I read it when it first came out. I find them kind of fun.
Not a fan9inth House by Lee Bardugo. Oh, I wish I love that.
Not a fanI had really high hopes for 9th house but then it kind of missed the mark for me so I'm not in like a massive rush to read this book
Loved itI read ninth house and hellbent and I really liked how engaging and pulpy and campy they were
MixedI remember giving it five stars I don't really remember much about this book I'm going to be honest I don't feel super attached to this series anymore even though I know I love this book maybe if I ever reread I will remember why I loved it
Not a fanI read the first book and I just couldn't get on board with it
Loved itI reread Ninth House before going into Hellbent. I wanted to know exactly everything about the societies cuz you kind of forget after a year. So good on the reread.
Loved itit's gritty and it's dark and I absolutely loved it
Not a fanI think I got about 100 pages, and I was just not feeling the story. I was kind of confused by what was going on and I couldn't really follow along that well of like what the point of the book was.
Not a fanBut for whatever reason i kept reading ninth house and i absolutely despised it. I have a whole video explaining why i didn't like it so feel free to go watch that rant review.
Loved iti kind of feel like i should put it in the middle of the road but it's just lee bardugo like i love her writing and i think this was such an interesting and different and inventive story for her
Not a fanI didn't enjoy the writing here. I know that some people enjoyed Bardugo's like descriptive writing, but I personally did not. I found that it was descriptive in a way that really didn't add much to the story.
Loved itninth house was totally worth all the hype for me I loved the magic the setting the history the mystery it just really fulfilled me as a reader
Loved itI really, really enjoyed this.
Loved itI loved this book like once I got past about page 100 on the second time through like I understood things and what was happening I love the dark turns that it took
