With heavy handed foreshadowing, each chapter heading prefaces a countdown to the murder of the emperor, which as you can imagine adds quite a bit of suspense while heightening the stakes of every interaction. This novel is told from two timelines with the first being Harrow in the present day going about her life as a new Lyctor. Every time the reader potentially could start to like Harrow, she would do or say something just awful to squash any burgeoning connections.

This second installment of the Locked Tomb series follows Harrow, a character who is quite unlikable in Gideon the Ninth. She could have taken this story so many conventional routes, but chose to take a huge risk that in hindsight feels true to the story thus far. As a whole, I can’t help but be impressed with Muir’s ambition that is shown throughout Harrow the Ninth. I’m not sure I could have appreciated the complexity of Muir’s overall story design and all the twists and turns along the way had I not had a helping guide to connect the well-orchestrated dots. Upon finishing, despite my deep puzzlement (that bordered on amusement), I still really enjoyed Harrow the Ninth. I read the cliff notes while simultaneously listening to the actual book. Can I confess my heinous actions to you without you judging me too terribly? In this state of utter bafflement, I did something I have never done before mid-read. Amplifying my confusion was that characters who I thought dead were back in action, while other story lines had significant deviations from Gideon the Ninth that left me wondering if I was misremembering. At one point I even did a Google search to verify if I was actually reading the correct book. That said, once I finally started Harrow the Ninth I was shocked to find myself utterly and completely lost. I’ve been looking forward to picking up Harrow the Ninth ever since I finished the first installment of the Locked Tomb series, especially with that cliffhanger ending.

Tamsyn muir gideon the ninth