Book Review: Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Tamsyn Muir once again astonishes me with here ability to keep a constant narrative thread in a series where every book is so thematically different. The majority of this book was largely a household (in the residential sense) drama - a significant shift from her previous two books in the series, and with a largely new cast of characters to boot.

Despite these changes, Tamsyn Muir once again crafts a tightly-woven mystery that is wonderful to unravel as the book goes on. I do wish it was unraveled just a little faster, as the book takes quite a long time for connections to the grand narrative to become clear, and it really felt like Muir was baiting me with my desire to see familiar characters again in order to get me to read the book.

The way Tamsyn Muir plays with gender and sexuality in these books is incredible. Not only are many of the characters explicitly Queer, but idea that some people feel different inside than they look on the outside is so tightly woven into the story - what with all the soul- and body-swapping necromancy going on - that it took almost 3 books for me to realize that this inclusion was probably a deliberate choice by the author. There are men in women’s bodies, women in men’s bodies, people who have two souls in one body, people who don’t have bodies, etc… and all of it feels so natural. I have an insane level of respect for Tamsyn Muir for being able to do this in a fantasy/sci-fi without making anything feel tokenized.