Book Review: The Locked Tomb series, Gideon, Harrow, Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

These are wild, unlike anything else I've read, I just went back and re-read them because I knew I was not really remembering what they were about. You need to be able to tolerate some dead bodies, blood and guts and lots of bones, besides that, go read them!

SPOILERS GALORE:

Gideon is a tortured, rude orphan adopted into the Ninth House, who is really good with a sword. She is manipulated into being the cavalier for Harrowhawk the necromancer, when God puts out a call to the nine houses to send their best to attempt to become new Lyctors - his "hands" that have incredible power, second only to him. Nine houses means lots of characters, necromancer and cavalier, and each goes by multiple names, or house name, so keeping track is challenging. They do start to die fairly quickly though, so that helps. 

Trials and competition ensue, turns out Cytheria, a lyctor, has replaced Dulcinea, of the necromancers and is killing all the applicants, because she thinks God/John is evil.

Gideon sacrifices herself so Harrow can become a lyctor, and they defeat Cytheria.

Harrow starts in the weirdest way, because Harrow is remembering Ortus as her cavalier, and Gideon isn't really mentioned, and it seems like history has been rewritten. 

We find out (when?) that Harrow regards herself as a war crime - her parents needed a necromancer child heir, and the only way to guarantee that was with death energy, so they calculated if they killed all 200 children in the ninth at once, they could use that energy to make Harrow a gifted necromancer. And she is. With lots of guilt. And confidence that she is really good, which she is. Gideon survived, somehow, which made everyone fear her.

Harrow has created a bubble in the River that the ghosts from the first book have been called to, so she can form these alternate versions of the past. She has performed brain surgery to alter her memories with a construct, so she won't remember Gideon, so that she won't consume Gideon's soul and erase her. A lobotomy is preferable to a world without Gideon. 

Nona is an adult, who we gather gradually is in Harrow's body, but only remembers the last six months. She is with Pyrra Dve and  Camilla, on a planet with a looming resurrection beast, and Blood of Eden is trying to figure out if she will remember enough or turn into a lyctor. 

Nona's school friends are Hot Sauce, Honesty, Born in the Morning, Kevin. Dog with six legs is Noodle. Nona loves everyone, feels deeply.

Ianthe shows up with demands from the emperor, no more violence against house forces. Doesn't go well.