Name: Harrow the Ninth
ISBN: 9781250313201

Tamsyn Muir

Harrow the Ninth, the sequel to the sensational, USA Today best-selling novel Gideon the Ninth, turns a galaxy inside out as one necromancer struggles to survive the wreckage of herself aboard the Emperor's haunted space station.

Harrow the Ninth

zilver 

vinny<3

She was nine, and she'd made a mistake. She was seventeen, and she'd made a mistake. Time had repeated itself. Harrow would be tripping over herself for her whole existence, a frictionless hoop of totally fucking up.

When you laid your head back against Ianthe's pillow, you smelled the thin putrefying off-apple smell from her bedside table, and you smelled her, and that scent was now familiar. It was the animal yearning for the familiar that undid you.

BUT WHEN I AM IN HEAVEN I WILL REMEMBER YOUR MOUTH, AND WHEN YOU ROAST DOWN IN HELL I THINK YOU WILL REMEMBER MINE

"There are very complex power dynamics on this station," said your sister Lyctor, with whom you had a very complex power dynamic.

"Eighteen," she said, in the tones of the jaded, fagged-out socialite. "I remember being eighteen."

You were so afraid she might touch you. You were so afraid anyone might touch you. You had always been afraid of anyone touching you,

"I know you're there," he rasped. "Kill me all you like. I would know you in the blindness of my eyes...in the deafness of my ears...as a shadow smudged against the wall, annihilated by light...stop. Not here. Not now. Let it go, love. I just want the truth...after all this time."

In comparing the eyes to the face, you saw into a zipped-up agony.

And she said, with that same dull, blank, diamond-hard pain: "The Cohort took the rest of him away. And I don't know where they have put him."

Then he did a very terrible thing. He stepped forward, and he pulled you into a wild embrace—the hold of a man drowning in deep water who cannot help but drag his rescuer down to the bottom with him. He dug his fingers into you in a way you were a little familiar with: tight against the chance that the person in front of you might be a cloud, or a mirage. He lifted you off the ground in his impatient, overfamiliar eagerness, and then he set you down again and saw your face.

"Kill us twice, shame on God," he said, and he leaned forward, and much to your intense distress he swiftly kissed your brow.

You'd make a hell of a daughter, Harrowhark. I sometimes indulge in the wish that you'd been mine."

"If I forget you, let my right hand be forgotten," her mouth was saying. "Add more also, if aught but death part me and thee."

 noise, because I won't believe it. Your plan backfired, Tridentarius. You've got the sickness. I know the signs of Nonagesimitis. You were all lined up for a big hot injection of Vitamin H."

but Nonagesimus, you hating me always meant more than anyone else in this hot and stupid universe loving me. At least I'd had your full attention.

Oh, we'll still hate each other, my dear, we have hated each other too long and too passionately to stop... but my bones will rest easy next to your bones."

Clara Gauthier

I will remember the first time you kissed me-you apologized-you said, I am sorry, destroy me as I am. But I want to kiss you before I am killed, and I said to you why, and you said, because I have only once met someone so utterly willing to burn for what they believed in, and I loved him on sight. And the first time I died I asked him what I now ask of you. 

I kissed you and later I would kiss him too before I understood what you were, and all three of us lived to regret it-but when I am in heaven I will remember your mouth, and when you roast down in hell I think you will remember mine.

Harrow the Ninth, the sequel to the sensational, USA Today best-selling novel Gideon the Ninth, turns a galaxy inside out as one necromancer struggles to survive the wreckage of herself aboard the Emperor's haunted space station. “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space! Decadent nobles vie to serve the deathless emperor! Skeletons!” —Charles Stross on Gideon the Ninth “Unlike anything I've ever read.” —V.E. Schwab on Gideon the Ninth “Deft, tense and atmospheric, compellingly immersive and wildly original.” —The New York Times on Gideon the Ninth She answered the Emperor's call. She arrived with her arts, her wits, and her only friend. In victory, her world has turned to ash. 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 be better off? THE LOCKED TOMB TRILOGY BOOK 1: Gideon the Ninth BOOK 2: Harrow the Ninth BOOK 3: Alecto the Ninth

chian

anya

An absolute masterpiece compared to the 1st book. Only reason it doesn't get a 5* is that mother-fucker of a clifhanger (also the dialogue still hasn't improved). A gut-wrenching, borderline harrowing(hehe) experience. Impressively succesful use of 2nd person (or was it the First the whole time)? Definitely made me appreciate the 1st book more.

Simon Crocker

Very confusing at first but when the epiphany moment arrived it revealed that confusing lead-up to be an intricate, sometimes hilarious, sometimes devastating, wholly imaginative journey through grief. 

Stark Koenig

Fenix Voliton 

** spoiler alert **
           me when i’m so in love with my cavalier that the thought of her dying causes me to give myself a literal lobotomy in order to preserve the lesbian love of my life.

orwyn

A confusing but glorious read. From chapter 40 the confusion was simply swept away by excitement.

Reread before Alecto comes out for appropriate Harrow/Ianthe-directed exasperation

Was even more confused throughout most of it. In love with Harrow

Sasja Koning

adhiti

to say this book is incredible is an understatement. this book is genuinely maybe one of the best novels i’ve ever read in my life, and i would be lying if i said i wasn’t contemplating a reread just to view the entirety of the book through a new lens. the work of second person pov as opposed to the familiar third person pov is SUCH a game changer, and it’s even more gripping once you realize 

 that’s the case. not only was this a wonderful sequel to gideon the ninth, but it’s just such a beautiful story on its own i quite literally cannot emphasize how much i love this. truly a life changing book. 

tiffany tercero

to say this book is incredible is an understatement. this book is genuinely maybe one of the best novels i’ve ever read in my life, and i would be lying if i said i wasn’t contemplating a reread just to view the entirety of the book through a new lens. the work of second person pov as opposed to the familiar third person pov is SUCH a game changer, and it’s even more gripping once you realize why that’s the case. not only was this a wonderful sequel to gideon the ninth, but it’s just such a beautiful story on its own i quite literally cannot emphasize how much i love this. truly a life changing book. 

Struggling to find the right words for this one. 😕 This book almost pushed me into a reading slump. Looking back, I should have DNFed it, but I kept hoping it would capture me like the previous book in the Locked Tomb series. 😔 Unfortunately, it just didn't click for me, and I'm so disappointed after loving Gideon the Ninth. 💔

so utterly confusing but so good. like i have been in shock for like the past 12+ hours since i finished the book but it is so good it’s worth the confusion. a lot more space in this book 

Honestly really confusing - and it makes sense by the end, but by then you’ve spent so much time confused that it was hard to really enjoy the book. As a continuation of the series it’s worth a read, but I’m not sure I would have read this as a stand-alone. The world is still so weirdly edgy and cool though.

Daphne Li-Chen

"i tried to get you back through sheer force of hope, and sheer force of want" gideon nav you owe me dinner for how much that hurt

Cathy Trình

goddamn i took ages to finish this but it was Wild

Riley

Nic Lake

5 STARS

If you are early on in the book, and seeing this review because you're confused or lost - keep going. I promise you. The first 2/3rds of the novel are, for lack of a better term, gaslighting you, the reader. I've never encountered this before in written form, and it's a tremendous effort from Tamsyn Muir to keep everything on the tracks. What initially had me going "what?" and considering DNFing the book led to one of the best "oh ****" moments I've ever had from a novel, and catapulted it up my rankings. Can't wait for the next entry in the series.

ok on the reread everything makes so much more sense and hits ten times harder, would rate 6/5 if I could 

edit for third read: I got even more o it of it this time, the gift that keeps on giving 

Joanna Laxon

ok on the reread everything makes so much more sense and hits ten times harder, would rate 6/5 if I could 

edit for third read: I got even more o it of it this time, the gift that keeps on giving 

literally such a good book, just gets 4.5 instead of 5 because gideon the ninth is one of the best books ever and also because the first three quarters is very hard to read and very sad BUT the last bit brings it on home. I love lesbians

fris🐝

Danny Werhane

No rating for now, I have no idea what the fuck I just read

augustine the first, saint of patience, it seems i have grown quite fond of you tho there are no sexual desires or urges you come to me as a long lost friend whom i once picked apples with in papas orchard

fira

4.5 stars

I liked this slightly better than Gideon the Ninth. The first 50% of this was quite confusing but the kind of confusing where you know it's confusing on purpose and in retrospect everything will make sense, so it both slightly frustrates you and keeps you going to find out what's going on. Between the curious switch to second-person narration, the non-chronological narrative, the intriguing skull symbols at the beginning of each chapter, and all the random details that didn't quite add up within the story, I felt like I was using all by brain cells to try and figure out what was happening before the reveal and was unsurprisingly falling short. The next 25% of the book was simultaneously a bit of a lull in terms of action and had yet even more intriguing things happening that continued to keep me reading. The final quarter of the book was where it all comes together and everything feels exciting and rewarding and it was by far my favourite part - so all the weirdness and frustration of the book is definitely worth it in the end.

There were so many strange choices Muir took when writing this book and by the time I finished it I found myself understanding and appreciating all of them. It was definitely unusual and probably one of the strangest books I've ever read, but so fun and addictive in the end. Looking forward to reading Nona now.

C. J. Daley 

I guess I would say take this for what it is... I am openly admitting that maybe I am forgetting a hell of a lot about Gideon the Ninth??

For starters, I have this weird engrained dislike for the use of the word “you” from teachers trying so hard to get us to keep the word out of essays that this really turned me off. Not to mention that in this 506 page book (my hardcover) she uses “you” probably one million times. I called immediately what it was being used for—in a weird, in the perspective of, but not of, Gideon speaking... I hated it. 
Now I don’t remember if it was mentioned in Gideon the decision to remove her memory of her, but by my reckoning, Gideon was not mentioned for 381 pages. I totally see what Muir was going for but I found that it really, really, REALLY did not work for me. 
I distinctly remember realizing at page 60, 100, 150, that I genuinely had absolutely no idea what was going on. This could have been a mixture of me not remember what happened in Gideon, but I also have to imagine that this was also a decent amount of poor writing too, right? Not that plot was a strong point in Gideon the Ninth, but this almost 400 page lead-up to the “twist” just completely erased any comprehensiveness in the story for me. Also I really enjoyed the murder mystery-y feel to Gideon the Ninth and I feel like this was the author trying to continue on with the mystery feel. For me it was a flop. 

I would say pages 1-400 were a 2* to maybe a 2.5*. Then the climax was a bit more understandable and cool, maybe a 3-3.5* ending. Really not sure at this point if I’ll read Alecto the Ninth...

va a sonar super ilógico pero la manera en la q sigo ????? o sea keko jones el final 🙇🏻‍♀️ pero lo bien q me lo he pasado leyéndolo q ???? es q literalmente es una sitcom de gente lokita. y las veces q he gritado internamente con todas las interacciones de harrow con ciertas personas 😳 tamsyn muir ha hecho algo q yo creo q nadie ha hecho antes y no creo q nadie nunca podrá replicarlo. that was a hell of a ride, nunca mejor dicho

maría

5⭐

va a sonar super ilógico pero la manera en la q sigo ????? o sea keko jones el final 🙇🏻‍♀️ pero lo bien q me lo he pasado leyéndolo q ???? es q literalmente es una sitcom de gente lokita. y las veces q he gritado internamente con todas las interacciones de harrow con ciertas personas 😳 tamsyn muir ha hecho algo q yo creo q nadie ha hecho antes y no creo q nadie nunca podrá replicarlo. that was a hell of a ride, nunca mejor dicho

pd: ianthe, a mí tmb me gusta eso

Gillian Rose

3.75 stars

This is difficult. I will start by saying that Gideon the Ninth was one of my favorite reads in 2020. Harrow was harder to get into due to the second-person narration (never my favorite!) but there were MANY narration shifts. And it was confusing! Especially since certain characters were never mentioned and it was bizarre. However, it did somewhat come together by the end. So, it was confusing, but I never hated the experience. I guess that's a win??? Needed more Camilla.