Ninth House (Alex Stern, 1)

Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House is a dark academia novel packed with murder, mystery, and ghosts. When Alex Stern, who has the uncanny talent to communicate with the dead, is offered a spot in Yale's incoming freshmen class, she's more than skeptical of her acceptance. With paranormal occurrences and shady secret societies, Ninth House has earned its spot as your next binge read. Who knew ghost communication was a coveted skill at Yale?

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. In fact, by age twenty, 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 prestigious universities on a full ride. What's the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale's secret societies. Their eight windowless "tombs" are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street's biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living.