Kirkus: There’s a lived-in sensibility to much of this novel that makes the horrific elements stand out even more, and Marino has a good eye for genuinely disturbing imagery…. this novel hums with a terrifying momentum…. A memorably visceral take on art, family, and power.
Locus: …if you’re not already a fan, this is not the place to start. Go directly to Gideon the Ninth. If you love it, read Harrow the Ninth, and then read this. If you don’t love it, Nona the Ninth is not for you. Also, we can’t be friends. (Actually, let me dial that back – for all I know this is a valid place to start. Given Muir’s astonishing skill, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it turned out the books had been painstakingly constructed so you could read them in any order and be equally bewildered and delighted….)
So, the bottom-line question that confronts a reviewer of this book is, if you loved Gideon and Harrow, will you love Nona? And: obvs. You already know.
Nona the Ninth is very on brand in that it completely scraps the previous book. That’s right: all that painstaking lore and the complex relationships and shifting webs of allegiances you spent hundreds of pages learning? Right out the window. And – still on brand – it works, somehow.
Bottom line: Tamsyn Muir can do anything. Like Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth, Nona keeps on attempting the most audacious, ridiculous, awe-inspiring feats of storytelling – and nailing it every single time. As an author I’d be nauseous with jealousy, if I wasn’t having such an ecstatic, blissful time. Nona the Ninth manages to be non-stop fun–and hilariously funny – and deeply, painfully, blisteringly moving. Sometimes all in the same paragraph.
The New York Times: It’s so rare to love every single book in a trilogy, to admire the aim, precision and storytelling stamina of an author this much. The fatal flaws of trilogies are plentiful: an explosive but overpromising beginning, a sagging middle, an insufficient end; characters whose arcs aren’t sustained; dropped threads, rushed acts. There’s none of that here — just the sense of a careful, experienced hand at the rudder, navigating the story home.
Booklist: Marino draws readers in quickly, creating sympathy for the characters, unveiling the necessary details to immerse them in a world of art, siblings, deadly intrigue, and a centuries-long nefarious quest. Dread is present from the start, but it quickly escalates into a disorienting cosmic terror that touches everyone. Booktalk it to readers as The Twisted Ones, by T. Kingfisher (2019) meets Slade House, by David Mitchell (2015) with a touch of Lovecraft Country, by Matt Ruff (2016).
Library Journal: Nona feels she has a pretty good life: she loves her family, works with alot of people her age, gets to be around a nice dog almost every day, and hopes to celebrate her birthday with a party on the beach. Of course, all of this is overshadowed by the facts that her city—and the entire planet—is under threat of destruction; that the Emperor Undying may be coming; and that Pyrrha, Camilla, and Palamedes may care about her, but Nona is actually an intruder in someone else’s body. Everyone seems to think Nona can save them from the Nine Houses, but she knows that to do that may mean she has to give up everything, including her own existence. This uniquely poignant arc of a young woman’s search for an ordinary life within a very extraordinary world is both stunning in its simpler moments and shocking in its reveals. Readers get lost in the story lines, but Muir’s clever prose always provides a path to the end.
VERDICT Muir’s third entry in “The Locked Tomb” series (after Harrow the Ninth) is as immersive and original as its predecessors.
Shelf Awareness: A Taiwanese American teen stumbles through the confusions of choosing a college, interpreting sexual interest from young men and asserting her desires in this refreshingly sex-positive coming-of-age YA novel.
Publishers Weekly: This addictive space opera from Ow (Cradle and Grave) posits a far-future, intergalactic cold war between Russia and the UN. Cocky scavenger Solitaire Yeung goes against his crew’s wishes to investigate a distress signal from a Russian military spaceship and steal (“salvage”) an unidentifiable piece of tech. Unknown to Solitaire, the stolen pod is a prototype for a new artificial intelligence, and the Russian Federation orders Cdr. Viktor Kulagin, captain of a destroyer fitted with an AI he deeply distrusts, to hunt Yeung down. This plot paves the way for a rarely seen thematic quandary centering on early AI use in spaceships. The cultural microcosms aboard space stations like New Tesla and cleverly interwoven history make for deeply plausible worldbuilding as Yeung finds himself at the center of a political conflict that could fracture the hostile peace between galactic superpowers. And when a new faction enters the fray, Solitaire and Viktor are forced to ally against a power that threatens all of humanity. Unexpected humor and thrilling action punctuate this space opera adventure while empathetic characters and a tenderly explored theme add a lot of heart. Fans of artificial intelligence and daring spy stories will find much to love.
BookPage: Sensual feasts abound…as Barrett masterfully portrays the sensation of infatuation growing into true love.
BookPage: Thoroughly engrossing…. Her main historical characters – as well as many fascinating secondary figures, such as the portraitist Vigée Le Brun – are so persuasively drawn, given Heartfield’s apparently meticulous attention to historical research…, that her feminist revisioning of a crucial period in European history is genuinely provocative…. a fabulously immersive novel.
Kirkus: The third installment of a necromantic science-fantasy series continues working at puzzles of identity and the meaning of loyalty.
Previously (Gideon the Ninth, 2019; Harrow the Ninth, 2020), sullen but brilliant necromancer Harrowhark consumed the soul of Gideon, her foulmouthed cavalier, to become a Lyctor, a semi-immortal officer in the Emperor Undying’s court. In a desperate attempt to preserve Gideon’s identity, Harrow deliberately erased the other woman from her memories, leaving herself confused to the point of delusion, unable to access her full powers, and vulnerable to enemies both within and without the Emperor’s court. This novel introduces Nona, a sweet but extraordinarily naïve young woman who appears to be in Harrowhark’s body but with Gideon’s golden eyes, lacking both necromantic abilities and any memories prior to six months ago. Nona’s been happy despite her precarious living situation in a war-torn city threatened by the necromantic Houses and their foe, the Blood of Eden. Unfortunately, what fragile peace she has cannot last, and everything depends on recovering Nona’s memories and returning to Harrowhark’s home in the Ninth House, there to finally release the deadly threat lurking in the Locked Tomb. But who is Nona, really: Harrowhark, Gideon, a blend of both young women…or someone else entirely? (The reader will figure it out long before the characters do.) Meanwhile, the Emperor and Harrowhark meet in dreams, where he recounts events of 10,000 years ago, when, as a newly fledged necromancer, his conflict with the corrupt trillionaires who planned to escape the dying Earth and leave the remaining billions to perish led to nuclear apocalypse. It’s pretty gutsy of Muir to write two books in a row about amnesiac characters, particularly when it may very well be the same character experiencing a different form of amnesia in each. This work initially reads like a strange interlude from the series, devoted to Nona’s odd but essentially quotidian routine in the midst of war, riot, and general chaos. But the story gradually gathers speed, and it’s all in service to a deeper plot. It is unfortunate that the demands of that plot mean we’ve gotten a considerably smaller dose of Gideon’s defiantly crude, riotously flouncy behavior in the two books subsequent to the one which bears her name.
A deceptively quiet beginning rockets to a thrilling finish, preparing us for the next volume’s undoubtedly explosive finale.