Wow, this book was intense!
Iâm covering the reading experience in Part 1, followed by the craft discussion in Part 2 where Iâll show you how she combined horror + mystery structures to make this a bestseller.
Part 1. My reading experience of Ninth House
This book is like Watson lost Sherlock and is trying to suddenly play super detective while discovering deadly magic tricks along the way.
âŚExcept this Watson is actually inherently more powerful than Sherlock, just less experienced and untrained.
Picture a Fantasy Horror-Mystery at the top of Dark Academia charts. In this genre, we have an ex-criminal girl turned evil-magic cop in training who just lost her mentor to the forces of hell (literally). Now our main character Alex is left to investigate and supervise the magic of rituals Yaleâs secret societies in which they gather power through various means to basically just keep the rich wealthy.
Itâs very different than the premise of âThe Magicians,â which many have compared it to, in that the world of âNinth Houseâ is more grounded in fighting for power and wealth in the contemporary world with people who werenât âborn gifted/magical.â Villains in the âNinth Houseâ want to rule the world, whereas villains in âThe Magiciansâ battle each other for the most magic power rather than worrying about the outside world much.
The tale is told in a parallel storyline that zips between the past, present, and really old past scenes throughout the novel, which works if youâre reading the whole thing quickly. If youâre a slow reader who likes to go through a chapter at a time and then pick back up the next day or two later, then the order of the scenes will confuse the hell out of you ⌠unless you have an exceptional memory. Luckily for me, I read through it quickly in 2 days. đ
My favorite quote from the book was:
"How do you tally four societies?"
"I'll get the whiteboard," said Dawes.
"Is it a magical whiteboard?" asked Turner sourly.
Dawes cast him a baleful look. "All whiteboards are magical."
Highlights:
Wow, the twist about what Alex Stern did in her past made me freeze and stare in shock at the pages. đŤŁđ
However, this book left me feeling HEAVY. I had to watch a few more episodes of STAGED before I could sleep better at night again after reading this one, because it went to some extraordinarily creepy places. I wouldnât advise reading this book alone at night, especially not in a country house in the middle of nowhere or on a possibly haunted university campus (*ahem* YALE for instance).
In case you havenât read the other reviews, trigger warnings for this book include:
Rape scenes
Torturous and invasive surgical procedures
On-screen murder (but, obviously, I think we all expected that bit)
Abusive relationships (including child abuse)
Drug overdose scenes
Violent possessions resulting in major trauma
Also, I loved Leigh Bardugoâs earlier book âSix of Crowsâ more than this one personally because I tend to prefer a fantasy world and more of a chronological timeline. With that being said, âNinth Houseâ is incredibly detailed and rich in world-building and has a lot more adult complexity that makes it feel totally different than her earlier books. The pacing is slower, like adult mysteries, so people who enjoy puzzling tales that make you play detective will enjoy âNinth Houseâ more than people who want to just sit back and enjoy a story.
For another hot take on this book, I really liked this balanced review of Ninth House by the Thoughts of Tomes YouTuber:
Part 2. The Craft: Combining Horror & Mystery Structures
The âNinth Houseâ blended these two genres well in ways that people didnât expect, but once you see what I mean here, then you can understand more about why the characters came across as they did.
Horror
As described by StoryGrid.com, the Horror Genre has 6 Obligatory Moments. Iâm summarizing and condensing them here into 5 sections to align better with the Mystery elements that follow:
Attack âĄď¸ Fight for life âĄď¸ đ is unbeatable âĄď¸ Hero becomes victim transformed âĄď¸ False ending, followed by the big one
Each part looks like this:
Inciting attack includes: The first moment we meet the big bad monster, intended to inspire fear that sets the tone for the suspense.
The Fight for Your Life section includes: The protagonist, often non-heroic, faces powerful forces that push them into the path of the monster as they struggle to save themselves. Each brush with death gets them progressively closer to the monster.
The Unbeatable đ section includes: A situation or speech detailing more information about the monster and how defeating it is impossible. Hope is dying.
The Hero Becomes Victim Transformed part includes: The final face-off climax between the hero and monster where the hero faces death and must unleash a gift or change radically to win.
The False Ending features: A wrap-up of a subplot or minor victory over the first monster, often followed by a bigger threat afterward as a terrifying surprise twist.
Mystery
As mentioned by Zara Altair in her overview of âMystery Structure Simplified,â an overall picture of a traditional mystery story follows this general flow:
Setup âĄď¸ Discovery (gathering clues) âĄď¸ Midpoint âĄď¸Funnel down âĄď¸ Reveals
Each part looks like this:
Setup includes: Immersion in the setting, meeting the detective, observing their skills, find the first dead body, and the natural progression to taking on the case.
Discovery includes: Diving into the world of the victim, naming all suspects, interviewing witnesses and suspects, and following the clues. Red herrings (distractions that appear to be clues) should also appear in this part. This section is where most subplots start too, after weâre comfortable in the world.
Midpoint includes: The detective hits a dead end and feels disheartened, until they learn something new that puts everything in a different perspective. Their investigation shifts into a new direction.
The Funnel includes: Re-examining all the clues, interviewing people again with new questions, and settling on who they think the real villain is as they plan to go after them. Some subplots should end here in order to avoid cramming too much information into the last part of the book.
Reveals include: The final face-off between the detective and the villain, and a quick overview of how all the clues led up to this.
Put them in a blender = đ§ââď¸Horrific Mysteryđľď¸ââď¸
When you combine both structures, you get something like this for the main sections:
Setup of meeting both the monster and the detective who then stumbles onto the dead body.
Brushing up with more death and dangers while gathering clues.
Monster seems undefeatable, until the detective learns an important new revelation.
Narrow it down to isolate the villain while others are dying as hero must finally face the monster/villain.
Hero must unleash a gift or change in the final face-off, followed by a surprise twist or double ending after all the secrets are revealed.
In broad strokes, this structure is actually the general shape of Ninth House. However, some important changes were made that give a slightly different result, which worked well for some readers and not so much for others. Letâs take a look:
***************************************minor spoilers ahead********************************************
1. đ§ââď¸meetsđľď¸ââď¸:
The prologue nails this first part. We see in the opening how our detective-figure Alex has been injured by something she describes in beastly terms, and she seems so delirious from the infected wound that she might actually be dying. We learn an important character, her mentor Darlington, is gone (overarching investigation #1).
Then we get into finding the dead body that launches her big case by page 27, and our main character doesnât really know what to do about it (which is fun to watch because it means things are going to get a bit more unpredictable):
Alex hung up and stood in the bleak, windswept silence of the empty plaza. Sheâd forgotten at least half of what Darlington had tried to teach her before heâd vanished, but he definitely hadn't covered murder.
She didn't know why. If you were going to hell together, murder seemed like a good place to start.
2. â ď¸ and dangers while đfor clues
This part is slower than the rest of the book. In favor of having a gradually increasing pace, we get a lot of backstory and flashbacks about Alexâs past and what it was like to see ghosts while growing up.
We also get chapters from Darlingtonâs (a.k.a. Sherlockâs) POV where he is training Alex and introducing her to all the secret society creepy shit that goes on at Yale. The most interesting thing about Darlingtonâs POV is that he is assessing Alex and trying to figure out why she can see ghosts naturally when he and everyone else have to take potions just to do that temporarily. The good part is that Darlington will eventually figure out what exactly is so special about Alex right before he disappears, so that info does pay off eventually.
Meanwhile, Alex is having all these flashbacks of Darlingtonâs training while she is searching for clues to investigate the death of this girl that no one thinks is important, which is obviously suspicious AF. Alex is interacting with the dead, etc. in wild ways here!
đĄIn terms of character development, I read reviews of people complaining that they âdidnât like Alexâ or that she seemed more like a stereotype. But hereâs the thing, this book isnât meant to be like the heavily character-development-focused novels Bardugo has written before. In both mystery and especially in horror genres, the main character is meant to focus on solving the case and surviving. Why?
Because thereâs just too much shit going on all around them! The selling point of stories like this one is the world. The magic. The scares. How are we supposed to learn all of these magic rules, and understand the societies, and solve a crime AND on top of that, have deep character changes? A book only has so many pages. You could do all that, but itâs extremely rare to find a book that does.
Characters like Alex are meant to shake up everything else around them, which by the end, she does.
3. đimminent + new đ˛(midpoint)
Here (if weâre following the typical story structures), then Alex is supposed to learn all the reasons why she canât win, neither by solving the murder nor by finding Darlington. Well, we donât get those.
However, we do get the fun twist of Alex jumping into a dangerous ritual where she nearly dies to finally talk to a ghost whoâs been haunting her for a long time, and at least she does learn something.
Apparently, her missing Darlington is not in the land of the dead, so she gets hope to find him. But whatâs even more interesting is that this ghost that everyone thought was a murderer is apparently innocent of his crimes. They make a deal in which the ghost agrees to help research Alexâs cases while she agrees to try and find out what really happened when he died.
Her ghost, named North,
(LOL I know, âShadow & Boneâ fans, âshe found her true northâ đâŚYou thought I couldnât make a joke in the middle of all this death and gore? Think again!) I really do love a lot of things about Shadow & Bone though.
anywayâŚback to Ninth House:
Her ghost named North gives her another important clue that the girl Tara who was murdered had NOT been just a random outsider college kid but was linked to many of the secret societies:
His hand stayed closed hard around hers. "I swear I will not ask your meaning in it: I do believe yourself against yourself, and will henceforward rather die than doubt."
Rather die than doubt. Tara's tattoo. The quote wasn't from some metal band.
"Idylls of the King," she said.
"You remember now."
She'd had to read the whole long sprawl of Tennyson's poem as part of the preparation for Darlington's and her first visit to Scroll and Key. There were quotes from it all over their tomb, tributes to King Arthur and his knights and a vault full of treasures plundered during the Crusades. Have power on this dark land to lighten it, and power on this dead world to make it live. She remembered the words etched into the stone table at the Locksmiths tomb.
Alex shook free of the Bridegroom's grip. So Tara's death was potentially connected to three societies. Tara was tied to Skull and Bones through Tripp Helmuth, to Book and Snake by the gluma attack, and unless Tara had a secret taste for Victorian poetry-she was linked to Scroll and Key by her Tennyson tattoo.
4. Isolate villain & đ¤ş
From this part of the story onward, the pace picks up intensely.
We meet a hell beast that nearly kills everyone!
We find out all of Alexâs scary secrets!
A crazy magic drug is on the loose!
Finally, after a crazy attack in which the apparently guilty student who murdered Tara comes after Alex, she barely survives long enough to watch something else (Iâm only giving you emojis for clues here because I donât to give all of it away đşđťđĽ) kill the villain sheâd been pursuing.
ButâŚduh duh DUHHHHH! (This is actually false ending 1, as mentioned in the Horror structure. Bardugo throws us off guard by launching it early.)
Alex discovers other clues left behind by Darlington that point to a bigger villain pulling the strings behind all this, so she decides to finally face the big bad monster/villain.
5. Reveals & unleash đĽyour đŞgift!
Here we do get Alex unleashing a secret gift/superpower that she didnât know she had, (But I donât want to give it away because it was really good!)
This surprise made the final battle very satisfying to read because she had been exploring this power of hers a bit earlier in the story. Thus, the climax felt earned rather than a rushed magic solution.
We thus end up with villains behind villains behind villains, which made the last few chapters the best. Since we ended up with several false endings, it put a fun spin on the traditional story structure of these genres as well.