Though she wasn’t religious, she was made aware of the differences between herself and others very early on, and she became acutely cognizant of the mechanisms of privilege. Suddenly, she says, she was the odd one out, thrust from a less prosperous, but comfortable, situation into one in which she was one of the only Jewish girls in her class. For much of her childhood she lived with her single mother in an apartment in the San Fernando Valley when her mother remarried, the family moved to a much wealthier area of Los Angeles, and Bardugo began attending a private, all-girls school. She was born in Jerusalem and soon moved to Los Angeles. But let’s not target individual books divorced from that conversation.”īardugo didn’t take a straight path to becoming a novelist. But I also think that if there is a bigger question about content warnings on books, then let’s have that conversation. “I don’t ever want to blindside my readers, and I do not approach this with a sense of callousness or disregard. It was like she was vibrating with the desire to get this stuff down on the page.” But “from the very beginning, especially with, it was like watching a locomotive speed down the tracks. “Every writer is always like, I’m desperate, please help me, save my book,” Wasserman said.

Robin Wasserman, a YA author who also recently started publishing fiction for adults, has helped Bardugo talk through the writing of her books since her 2012 breakout Shadow and Bone. Ninth House is an impressive achievement, a book for adults that tackles many of the same themes as her earlier novels-the lingering specter of trauma, the lengths people go to survive, the power unjustly wielded by the wealthy at the expense of the supposedly powerless-but with more grit. Her latest novel, her publisher would like you to know, is not YA. The way things appear to be going for Bardugo, it wouldn’t surprise many of her readers if she were one day catapulted to that level of literary stardom. Martin’s Game of Thrones series, albeit on a smaller scale-for now, at least.

These fans’ idolization of Bardugo and adoration for her novels is nearly as intense as the enthusiasm for George R.R. Her series, including the Grisha trilogy and the Six of Crows duology, have a loyal fan base some devotees even have tattoos similar to the crow and cup tattoos worn by many of the characters in Six of Crows.

Bardugo’s previous books, uniquely complex Young Adult fantasy novels led by fractured heroes, have sold more than 3 million copies and been translated into 38 languages.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo