Review of Dead Beat (Ninth House #3) by Leigh Bardugo

The third and final installment of Bardugo's Ninth House dark fantasy series offers more gritty corruption, seemingly insurmountable challenges, the threat of the entirety of hell's wrath, wonderfully morbid humor, some hard-won romance, and a ragtag group of loyal allies bent on thwarting the spread of evil.

This was friendship, he supposed. You learned the rhythms of hurt and apology. You crashed through each other's lives and hoped for grace in the final tally of the damage.

In the first two books in this series, Ninth House and Hell Bent, we met Alex Stern, who was offered a new start after surviving a mysterious multiple homicide. She became an unlikely member of the Yale freshman class, but the darkness of her past was matched only by the danger of the magic and rituals being used by the secret societies she was meant to be monitoring.

Alex is a brave, scowling, and unapologetic figure who has literally escaped from hell, saving her love interest Darlington in the process.

In Dead Beat, Alex, now with a ragtag group of loyal allies, must figure out how to close the gates to hell--while fending off the nefarious Yale faculty members, malicious family members, and random demons out to make sure they fail.

Dead Beat explores fate, reinvented futures, revenge, and redemption. Bardugo writes dark-tinged fantasy better than almost anyone, and she allows for romance between social-outcast heroes in a gritty world, so that it never feels like romantasy.

I'm in for all the Bardugo books I can get my hands on.

I listened to an audiobook version of this title through Libby and my public library.

More Leigh Bardugo Books

Leigh Bardugo is the author of the first two books in this series, Ninth House and Hell Bent, as well as The Familiar, the Shadow and Bone series, the King of Scars duology, and other books.