Another thing about this book is how unapologetically and unassumingly queer it is. Nona, Camilla, Palamedes, and Pyrrah are an adorable family and while I loved them as much as Nona did, the secondary cast of characters including Noodle the dog, Hot Sauce, Honesty, and the Angel were all delightful characters that I had a lot of fun reading about. The cast for Nona is also probably my favorite so far. It was fun to see what led to the Nine Houses and Blood of Eden, as well as the fact that John's villain origin story was basically just capitalism and cancel culture, which, fair enough.

There's a lot of biblical imagery, it's literal Bible fanfiction. It also had the vibes of a bridge book, unlike Harrow, Nona is obviously a middle book that builds up the climax for Alecto. I for one loved the slow domestic parts, it gave us a glimpse of the people affected by the war, it also gave us a lot more nuance to Blood of Eden, where things aren't as straight as Commander Wake would want us to think. Like most of the Locked Tomb books, Nona does have a rather slow start before all hell starts to break loose. On the whole, I did find that Nona was a lot less confusing than the last two books, probably because Harrow gave us so much information and backstory about John, and the Lyctors and Blood of Eden. I cannot imagine reaching the end of this life and having any regrets, so long as I had been allowed to experience being your adept.” “We had something very nearly perfect … the perfect friendship, the perfect love.

“Camilla, we did it right, didn’t we?” Palamedes said.

Move over Griddlehark, these two are now my fav necro-cav pair (i'm sorry okay).

Not to mention Camilla and Palamedes, for whom I would die a thousand fiery deaths. I still find Harrow to be my favorite installment yet, but Nona features my favorite character in the series yet, Nona! Yes, I know Gideon is almost everyone's favorite, but after finishing this book, I found myself deeply attached to Nona. That does not make it any less of a story, rather it makes it all the more tender and fragile. Nona the Ninth was a very different book from the previous two books in the series, it's a slow burn, and instead of the typical action necromancy setting, we have a more civilian/domestic approach to the story. I am sobbing like an idiot, this book was everything I wanted. Reading a Locked Tomb book is the equivalent of trying to understand an intricate chess game, while Muir gaslights you by saying there was no chess game, it was a football match all along.

Nona the ninth