Courtesy of New Life Literary & Media

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Amazon Studios has won the rights to Grishaverse author Leigh Bardugo’s just released novel Ninth House to develop as a series, with Bardugo attached to write the adaptation and executive produce.

Ninth House, published October 8 by Flatiron Books, is Bardugo’s first novel for adults. It is set at an alternate Yale, Bardugo’s real-life alma mater, where the secret societies guard dangerous, magical secrets and ghosts haunt the campus.

A book of the month selection at Apple, Barnes & Noble and Amazon, Ninth House has an order for 350,000 copies for its first print run. It triggered a bidding war among premium and streaming outlets, with HBO and Hulu reportedly among those pursuing the title.

Bardugo will executive produce the project alongside her frequent collaborator Pouya Shahbazian (the Divergent series), head of film & TV at New Leaf.

Ninth House comes on the heels of Bardugo’s hugely successful Grishaverse fantasy novels, including Six of Crows, which spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list, as well as Shadow and Bone, which is being adapted into a series by Netflix. The Grishaverse books have sold three million copies in English and have been translated into 41 languages.

Shahbazian also executive produces Love, Simon, the upcoming Disney+ series inspired by the Greg Berlanti-directed film, now in production.

Bardugo is currently on a nationwide tour for Ninth House, which has received endorsements from authors Stephen King, Lev Grossman, Charlaine Harris, Joe Hill and Kelly Link, and will follow with a tour in the UK. She is repped by Joanna Volpe at New Leaf Literary & Media and attorney Melissa Rogal of Lichter Grossman.