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inkandplasma
First impressions: I'm gonna write a full review when I've recovered from the trauma
waiting until 2021 for alecto the ninth is the greatest pain I'll ever know
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Full review: https://inkandplasma.wordpress.com/2020/06/11/harrow-the-ninth-by-tamsyn-muir-review/
It is so hard to talk about this book spoiler-free, and I can’t wait for everyone I know to read it so that I can scream about the incredible complexity of Harrow the Ninth. I also find it basically impossible to talk about books that I love this much.
I was pretty worried about what could possibly happen after the end of Gideon the Ninth. Gideon’s dead, Harrow is in a state, Ianthe is the only other one of our beloved cast of characters still around and kicking. But Harrow is a Lyctor now, and she’s met God. Things are looking less dire. Or not. Things are bad for Harrow in this book. She’s having a hard time and I kind of want to wrap her up in bubble wrap and kind of want to smack her in the teeth. I love her so much but for all her genius, she doesn’t have a scrap of sense. As someone with absolutely no sense, she’s a necromantic icon.
I loved meeting Lyctors and finding out more about how The King Undying came to be God and how the first Lyctors ended up in Canaan House and discovered the process of Lyctorhood in the first place. We’ve got plenty of strange characters to make up for the people we lost in the first book, and I got attached to them pretty much immediately. The threat facing them, and all of the Houses under Dominicus, is bigger than I expected and I liked the way that it tied into the mythology of the first book. I also particularly enjoyed the way that Tamsyn Muir expanded the world-building. After reading Harrow the Ninth, I reread Gideon and there were amazing throwbacks that I missed the first time that suddenly made perfect sense. I loved the way that clues had been so plainly visible in the first book but without context I totally dismissed them. And that leads into my favourite thing about this series, and Harrow the Ninth in particular. This book is so smart.
The second time I read Harrow the Ninth I tabbed it and one of my tabs was literally ‘times this book is smarter than me’. There were uh, a lot of tabs. (See the picture above!) Harrow the Ninth literally gets better every time I read it. The first time, I was reading it and I knew things were happening that I didn’t understand but I couldn’t put the pieces together. The second time, I saw all the clues staring me in the face and felt like an utter moron for not getting there sooner. Writing this, I honestly want to start reading the whole series again. The prose supports how clever it is, just like in Gideon the Ninth, and the balance of humour and complicated sci-fi aspects is done really well. Sometimes the jokes were a tiny bit reaching, but you know what? I love these books so much that I can let that pass. I still laughed out loud plenty of times.
The wait for Alecto the Ninth is already killing me dead, and I can’t wait to see how this series resolves itself because I could not predict a single fucking plot point in this entire book. Everyone I know in person is sick of hearing me talk about The Locked Tomb series, so by the time Alecto releases there’s a good chance I’ll have no friends and family left to watch me cry over it.
waiting until 2021 for alecto the ninth is the greatest pain I'll ever know
---------------------
Full review: https://inkandplasma.wordpress.com/2020/06/11/harrow-the-ninth-by-tamsyn-muir-review/
It is so hard to talk about this book spoiler-free, and I can’t wait for everyone I know to read it so that I can scream about the incredible complexity of Harrow the Ninth. I also find it basically impossible to talk about books that I love this much.
I was pretty worried about what could possibly happen after the end of Gideon the Ninth. Gideon’s dead, Harrow is in a state, Ianthe is the only other one of our beloved cast of characters still around and kicking. But Harrow is a Lyctor now, and she’s met God. Things are looking less dire. Or not. Things are bad for Harrow in this book. She’s having a hard time and I kind of want to wrap her up in bubble wrap and kind of want to smack her in the teeth. I love her so much but for all her genius, she doesn’t have a scrap of sense. As someone with absolutely no sense, she’s a necromantic icon.
I loved meeting Lyctors and finding out more about how The King Undying came to be God and how the first Lyctors ended up in Canaan House and discovered the process of Lyctorhood in the first place. We’ve got plenty of strange characters to make up for the people we lost in the first book, and I got attached to them pretty much immediately. The threat facing them, and all of the Houses under Dominicus, is bigger than I expected and I liked the way that it tied into the mythology of the first book. I also particularly enjoyed the way that Tamsyn Muir expanded the world-building. After reading Harrow the Ninth, I reread Gideon and there were amazing throwbacks that I missed the first time that suddenly made perfect sense. I loved the way that clues had been so plainly visible in the first book but without context I totally dismissed them. And that leads into my favourite thing about this series, and Harrow the Ninth in particular. This book is so smart.
The second time I read Harrow the Ninth I tabbed it and one of my tabs was literally ‘times this book is smarter than me’. There were uh, a lot of tabs. (See the picture above!) Harrow the Ninth literally gets better every time I read it. The first time, I was reading it and I knew things were happening that I didn’t understand but I couldn’t put the pieces together. The second time, I saw all the clues staring me in the face and felt like an utter moron for not getting there sooner. Writing this, I honestly want to start reading the whole series again. The prose supports how clever it is, just like in Gideon the Ninth, and the balance of humour and complicated sci-fi aspects is done really well. Sometimes the jokes were a tiny bit reaching, but you know what? I love these books so much that I can let that pass. I still laughed out loud plenty of times.
The wait for Alecto the Ninth is already killing me dead, and I can’t wait to see how this series resolves itself because I could not predict a single fucking plot point in this entire book. Everyone I know in person is sick of hearing me talk about The Locked Tomb series, so by the time Alecto releases there’s a good chance I’ll have no friends and family left to watch me cry over it.
Review live on my blog November 3rd: https://inkandplasma.com/2020/11/03/the-once-and-future-witches/
Thanks to Orbit Books for the review copy of this book, it has not affected my honest review.
Trigger Warnings, taken from author's list on GR: Child abuse, both physical and psychological; parental death; arrest and imprisonment; mind control; pregnancy and childbirth, including forced hospitalization; abortion; racism; sexism; homophobia, both external and internalized; threat of sexual assault, averted; torture (mostly off-the-page, but alluded to); execution (attempted); child abandonment; major character death.
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I say this a lot but I truly think this book might have been made for me. Historical fantasy fronted by witches using actual practice and not mystical wand waving, leading a feminist suffragette charge with nothing but their wits and willpower. It was just perfection. I hadn’t read anything from Alix E. Harrow before, though I have had The Ten Thousand Doors of January on my radar for a while, and her writing blew me away so intensely that within five minutes of finishing The Once and Future Witches I was on my phone trying to get ahold of a copy of The Ten Thousand Doors of January. Harrow’s writing is lyrical and beautiful, and feels so carefully crafted that every line is a masterpiece. I couldn’t pick a single favourite line from this book. I couldn’t even narrow it down to five. Settings were made vivid and memorable; I usually don’t remember anything about the settings of books because I have aphantasia, but when making my graphic for this post I was completely fixated on the thought of Juniper’s cane against stone streets. It was truly that memorably vivid even in little passing snippets. The descriptions of the witching was perfect. To be honest, I can be quite fussy on what feels like realistic witchcraft and what doesn’t, and this nailed it in so many ways for me. And the way that the words were woven into witchcraft were truly perfect. I loved the storytelling aspect as it was cut into the Eastwood sisters’ tale.
As for the Eastwoods, I adored all three of them. I was buddy reading this with Andee (mousereads) and I swear every third word out of my mouth was ‘Juniper’ for the entire four days that we were reading. While Juniper has my heart and soul (not surprising, considering I’m a maiden archetype witch anyway), I truly loved all three of the Eastwoods. Bella was the slowest for me to adore, but her relationship with the wonderful Cleo definitely drew her personality out and made her the type of character I just wanted to whisk away for a happily ever after. And honestly, I think that certain reveals about her history make her caginess in the early chapters make perfect sense. Agnes is jaded and cautious and very reluctant to share her love again. Despite that, it was still clear just how fiercely she was capable of loving, and I adored her unwillingness to yield when it came to the people she cares for. Not to mention that August Lee? The only man in this book with rights. And then Juniper. James Juniper Eastwood. I actually adore her. Dangerous and strong-willed and sharp tongued, Juniper is the fire that drives them at first and I loved her role in their family. I also loved that she was equal parts villain and hero, and never backed down from a fight. I could honestly read a thousand pages of Juniper just going around her daily life. Any book that can have three main characters and make me adore all of them without hesitation deserves all the praise. And the bond of sisterhood between them and the other women in this book brought literal tears to my eyes. Even the side characters were well written, well rounded and very well loveable.
The plot of The Once and Future Witches genuinely stressed me out so much. At one point there was so much happening that I thought I must be nearing the climax, only to find out I was literally halfway through. It was well paced, a balance between fast action scenes and the longer, slower process that building a coven and spreading dissent and magic would be. I was never bored and always desperate to keep turning pages, eager to uncover both the magical aspects of the book and to find out more about the womens’ fight for equality and the vote. The way the story built into an emotional crescendo was incredible and I think my anxiety and excitement will be just as palpable on the reread. It built to an ending that packed such a punch that it left me crying at work and Andee crying in a Starbucks. And if that’s not enough of a selling point, I don’t know what is.
Thanks to Orbit Books for the review copy of this book, it has not affected my honest review.
Trigger Warnings, taken from author's list on GR: Child abuse, both physical and psychological; parental death; arrest and imprisonment; mind control; pregnancy and childbirth, including forced hospitalization; abortion; racism; sexism; homophobia, both external and internalized; threat of sexual assault, averted; torture (mostly off-the-page, but alluded to); execution (attempted); child abandonment; major character death.
---
I say this a lot but I truly think this book might have been made for me. Historical fantasy fronted by witches using actual practice and not mystical wand waving, leading a feminist suffragette charge with nothing but their wits and willpower. It was just perfection. I hadn’t read anything from Alix E. Harrow before, though I have had The Ten Thousand Doors of January on my radar for a while, and her writing blew me away so intensely that within five minutes of finishing The Once and Future Witches I was on my phone trying to get ahold of a copy of The Ten Thousand Doors of January. Harrow’s writing is lyrical and beautiful, and feels so carefully crafted that every line is a masterpiece. I couldn’t pick a single favourite line from this book. I couldn’t even narrow it down to five. Settings were made vivid and memorable; I usually don’t remember anything about the settings of books because I have aphantasia, but when making my graphic for this post I was completely fixated on the thought of Juniper’s cane against stone streets. It was truly that memorably vivid even in little passing snippets. The descriptions of the witching was perfect. To be honest, I can be quite fussy on what feels like realistic witchcraft and what doesn’t, and this nailed it in so many ways for me. And the way that the words were woven into witchcraft were truly perfect. I loved the storytelling aspect as it was cut into the Eastwood sisters’ tale.
As for the Eastwoods, I adored all three of them. I was buddy reading this with Andee (mousereads) and I swear every third word out of my mouth was ‘Juniper’ for the entire four days that we were reading. While Juniper has my heart and soul (not surprising, considering I’m a maiden archetype witch anyway), I truly loved all three of the Eastwoods. Bella was the slowest for me to adore, but her relationship with the wonderful Cleo definitely drew her personality out and made her the type of character I just wanted to whisk away for a happily ever after. And honestly, I think that certain reveals about her history make her caginess in the early chapters make perfect sense. Agnes is jaded and cautious and very reluctant to share her love again. Despite that, it was still clear just how fiercely she was capable of loving, and I adored her unwillingness to yield when it came to the people she cares for. Not to mention that August Lee? The only man in this book with rights. And then Juniper. James Juniper Eastwood. I actually adore her. Dangerous and strong-willed and sharp tongued, Juniper is the fire that drives them at first and I loved her role in their family. I also loved that she was equal parts villain and hero, and never backed down from a fight. I could honestly read a thousand pages of Juniper just going around her daily life. Any book that can have three main characters and make me adore all of them without hesitation deserves all the praise. And the bond of sisterhood between them and the other women in this book brought literal tears to my eyes. Even the side characters were well written, well rounded and very well loveable.
The plot of The Once and Future Witches genuinely stressed me out so much. At one point there was so much happening that I thought I must be nearing the climax, only to find out I was literally halfway through. It was well paced, a balance between fast action scenes and the longer, slower process that building a coven and spreading dissent and magic would be. I was never bored and always desperate to keep turning pages, eager to uncover both the magical aspects of the book and to find out more about the womens’ fight for equality and the vote. The way the story built into an emotional crescendo was incredible and I think my anxiety and excitement will be just as palpable on the reread. It built to an ending that packed such a punch that it left me crying at work and Andee crying in a Starbucks. And if that’s not enough of a selling point, I don’t know what is.