Considering the smashing success of Leigh Bardugo‘s first adult novel, there was no surprise when Ninth House was picked up for a series adaptation. The novel follows a girl named Alex Stern, who enters Yale in her Freshman Year. Unconventional and inherently an outsider among the wealthy and arrogant elite, Alex has a special skill that no one else possesses: she can see ghosts. Entering the occult world of secret societies at Yale (no word on whether they actually have the power to wield occult magic), Alex must navigate a dangerous world of magic, manipulative rich kids, and the constant threat of the haunting dead.

Bardugo pulls from some of her personal experiences for Ninth House, being a Yale alumnus herself and a member of a secret society, and will be acting as an executive producer on the series adaptation set to be developed by Amazon Studios. At her side is Pouya Shahbazian, who is known for her work on the Divergent series, and is the head of film & TV at New Leaf.

Not much is known about the series. At this time, Bardugo‘s other book-series-turned-tv-show Shadow and Bone is about to premiere their second season on Netflix on March 16. But, we caught up with Bardugo recently when discussing the Ninth House sequel, Hell Bent. Bardugo disclosed that while she was a large part of Season 1 of Shadow and Bone, “I made a deal with myself that if we got a second season, I was going to take a step back from the adaptation process and be a little bit less hands-on.” She went on to add that working on the Ninth House series “renewed my feeling of excitement about this series.”

When asked about updates on the Ninth House television adaptation, she said:

All I can tell you is the wheels of Hollywood turn very slowly. And I can’t even talk about who I’ve been working on the project with. But I can tell you that we have a pilot that I absolutely love and that it has been a complete delight to work on. Unlike with Shadow and Bone, I actually got to get in there and work on the writing, break the story, deal with notes in a much more hands-on way. And I loved it. And I also feel like it made me twice as excited to write Hell Bent, because it made me think of the story in different ways. And that, I think, is a pleasure

While there is no news on cast, showrunners, or updates on when production is expected to start, it looks like those worried about whether Ninth House will get the stamp of approval from Bardugo at least do not have to be concerned.

via Collider