Harrow the Ninth

by Tamsyn Muir

eBook, 512 pages

English language

Published Aug. 7, 2020 by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.

ISBN:: 978-1-250-31320-1

(173 reviews)

After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery, murder, magic, and mayhem. Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman's shoulders.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath ― but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her.

Sealed in the gothic gloom of the Emperor's Mithraeum with three unfriendly teachers, hunted by the mad ghost of a murdered planet, Harrow must confront two unwelcome questions: is somebody trying to kill her? And if they succeeded, would the universe …

8 editions

Chris he/they reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #2)

Muir does it again!

5 stars

One thing that is a little infuriating about The Locked Tomb is that every book has significant secrets from the reader and the narrator at the start. Hints and details get dropped throughout, and by the back half of the novel you understand a lot more about the early action. I only caught onto the main weirdness in this book after about 10 chapters.

While that early confusion can be frustrating, I implore you to keep reading! Nearly all of my early questions get answered before the culminating action, along with dozens of questions I never thought to ask! Muir is an expert at weaving together a narrative and world-building that pays off.

Truly beautiful space fantasy with just enough questions left over to leave you desperate for more answers and more books.

Micah reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb Trilogy)

Oww, my brain

3 stars

Content warning Plot consistency vs. last book

Too friggin twisty compared to the first book, you took 70% of the book for Gideon to show up?! Like come on, it was obvious she still had to be around somewhere in Harrow's brain since Harrow kept trying to use a two-hander instead of a rapier.

Wild Woila reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #2)

What the hell is going on?

3 stars

Our favourite necromancer has risen to the ranks of the most powerful, who are rather Machiavellian but disconcertingly human. In the process though, she has lost her marbles, and we are left without any certainty as to what the hell is going on, and doubts undermine our memory of the first book. Which is mostly bearable because it eventually unravels, only to be frustrated by an unwelcome dumping of unresolved head-scratchers which demands some re-reading. More serious than the first book, without the swagger.

xini reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb Trilogy)

Review of 'Harrow the Ninth' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

menuda pasada... mira que se me hacen difíciles de leer porque lo paso mal no entendiendo cosas, pero a veces hay que dejarse llevar, i guess. creo que voy a esperar antes de leerme nona! pa no quemarme tampoco. pero tengo ganitas!

Courts reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #2)

What is Going On?

5 stars

If you couldn't quite follow the events in Gideon the Ninth and found the book confusing, this one is definitely not for you.

Harrow the Ninth continues the Locked Tomb series where Gideon the Ninth left off. It is a complete mindfuck however (excuse my language) and with every page I was delightedly wondering "ok, what unexpected event or information will come next?"

If you liked the first one, this continuation will make you like the series even more.

MazzaB1 reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb Trilogy)

Review of 'Harrow the Ninth' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

My mind is blown. BLOWN.
I will say it’s helpful to pay close attention to all of the minor details in the book because they do matter!!

This is a WILD ride

Esther reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb Trilogy)

Madness and grief

4 stars

I never expected a book to successfully gaslight me and I would have expected even less that I would enjoy that.

This book manages not only to describe someones descent into madness from intense grief but it makes you feel it yourself. It fractured so many things you thought you knew from the previous book that you constantly doubt your own memory of those past event, but brings everything together towards the end only to leave you with questions again.

It is also repeatedly hilarious and features one of the best dad jokes of all time.

Druidan reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #2)

Harrow the Ninth – Review

5 stars

This series does not give up its secrets easily. It holds them closely and tightly like a squirrel with its nuts. I was left at the end of the last book with a lot of questions, and really pressing plot developments that I needed answers to, and “Harrow the Ninth“ wasn’t going to give them to me lightly. The book does its best from the get-go to upend your sense of reality, attacking your memories of what exactly happened in the first book. It does this both in story content - it directly contradicts events as you remember them from book one - but also in the narration. style. I can’t say that I have ever read another book that spends this much time in the second person. It took me quite a while to get used to it, as I typically despise second person, but once I did it won me over. It’s use emphasized the tone, and set up some surprising reveals in the last act. I don’t want to say too much aside from the fact that all of the strangeness and confusion is worth it for those big reveals, and I recommend sticking with the book through it. It is worth the ride. The story follows Harrow in both the present and past, with the past reliving events from the first book from a different angle and with those big inconsistencies, while the present focuses on her experiences with the Emperor and the other Lictors, as she learns more about the truth of the state of the empire, and her role in it. The book is full of interesting world building, conflicting personalities, mysteries, and occasional flashes of action and violence that are thoroughly satisfying to read. I personally would not say that I like this one better than the first, because I missed some of the characters I liked from that first book, but this is very easily a worthy successor that does very interesting things with its narration, and it is a strong recommendation from me.

Mickey reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb Trilogy)

Review of 'Harrow the Ninth' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

4/5

I must say that I didn’t love this one as much as I loved Gideon, it was a crazy mess of different timelines, weird perspectives and false memories. There were pieces I felt I understood where it was going at least and others I had no idea what their meaning was at all.

It did come together in the end which was cool and did leave even more questions for the future. Though I’m not sure I love where it’s going? I liked the low scale necromancy a lot more than the multi-world scale it seems to be taking off into, but I will see how the next book goes.

Overall I did enjoy it, despite it trying a little too hard to obscure its own story. It was certainly not an easy read but it took a lot of skill to make a book this confusing and yet …

flarion reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb Trilogy)

Review of 'Harrow the Ninth' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

That was an incredibly complex book to read. Almost too complex to enjoy. The narrative was really hard to understand and started only to make sense in the last quarter. Only my curiosity made me finish it.

Itzayana reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #2)

Even better the second time

5 stars

Amazing. During my second read through I started to question if I had ever read this book once. There's so much going on here that multiple reads is a must.

Daniel Darabos reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb Trilogy)

Review of 'Harrow the Ninth' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Everyone opens up Harrow the Ninth after having read Gideon the Ninth and fallen in love with Gideon's character. "Is she okay?" is the only question I wanted to see answered. Does Harrow the Ninth deliver?

No. Gideon is not mentioned for the majority of the book. But it's worse than that. We're actively getting flashbacks to Gideon the Ninth's plot with Gideon erased from it! Fantastic.

The world-building is going strong, there's lot's of drama, bloody action, twists and betrayals. I'm still on board with the series. Every decision on the writer's part is surprising and fun. This book was a typical 2nd book and a bit of a filler. Is the story going anywhere? Probably yes, but I also don't really care. I'm here for lewd necromancers in space, and I don't think this series will run out of those.

PS: Haha, some great quotes:

At this, there …

At this, there was a fractional relaxing of Mercymorn's frowzled brow: not relief, but the germination of the seed of relief.

Old people should be shot.

It was not the way of the Ninth House to pray with such wilful credulousness; yet you prayed all the while knowing Ianthe's facility for tergiversation would have given the whole universe pause.

So I'm shut in here—walled in, really— to prevent the Nine Houses becoming none House, with left grief.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/None_pizza_with_left_beef)

no <3 reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb Trilogy)

Review of 'Harrow the Ninth' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

April 9th, 2023
Makes a lot more sense the second time round

December 9th, 2022:
From an enjoyment standpoint, the plot is poorly paced and confusing, but from an artistic standpoint, it makes perfect sense. The slow, disjointed feel of the first 60% or so makes the reader understand Harrow's dissociation. All of a sudden it makes sense when certain events that I shan't speak of occur and Harrow is jolted back into a version of sanity.
It's a rather violent book (not my usual taste) but that factor can be ignored when you focus on the genius of everything else.

Niko reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb Trilogy)

Review of 'Harrow the Ninth' on 'Storygraph'

No rating

I managed to read 16% of this book because I’m deeply masochistic. I managed to stop reading this book because I realized that I love myself I’m too old to struggle through obtuse writing, waiting for an actual plot to kick in.

jon_bon reviewed Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb Trilogy)

Review of 'Harrow the Ninth' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Ja... Det blir lite för mycket feberdröm över det hela för att den röda tråden i berättelsen ska kunna hållas intakt. Lite som att försöka hitta "lösningen" eller "poängen" i någon av de mer bisarra filmerna eller TV-grejerna av David Lynch. Samtidigt välskriven med intressanta karaktärer, vilket gör att boken ändå fixar en trea i betyg. Men jag är inte överförtjust i det här überkryptiska berättarsättet där framtid, dåtid, nutid och all sorts sammanhållning bluddras ihop till någon sorts LSD-tripp. Hoppas på lite mer stringens i uppföljaren Nona the Ninth, alltså mer logik som med första delen Gideon the Ninth.