Nona the Ninth

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is the third installment in The Locked Tomb series, shifting the narrative lens once again to deliver a story that is quieter, stranger, and more emotionally intimate than its predecessors. While still rooted in necromancy and cosmic power, this novel focuses on humanity, memory, and the fragile bonds formed in the shadow of extinction.

Set in a city on the brink of collapse, the story follows Nona - a young woman with an innocent outlook, limited memory, and an uncanny connection to the world around her. She lives with a small, precarious household, attending school, caring deeply for others, and finding joy in ordinary routines, even as political instability and violence loom ever closer. This contrast between domestic tenderness and apocalyptic threat defines the novel’s emotional core.

At its heart, Nona the Ninth is about identity and embodiment. Nona’s perspective is radically different from previous narrators in the series, marked by sincerity, curiosity, and an absence of cynicism. Through her eyes, Muir explores what it means to exist without full knowledge of oneself - and whether identity is shaped more by memory or by how one loves and is loved.

The broader conflict of the necromantic empire continues to unfold in the background. Refugees, resistance movements, and collapsing systems reveal the cost of centuries of exploitation and conquest. Power structures are shown in decay, no longer distant or abstract, but painfully immediate. Apocalypse here is not sudden - it is slow, communal, and devastatingly personal.

Found family emerges as a central theme. Nona’s household is loving but unstable, bound together by necessity, secrecy, and shared fear. These relationships offer warmth without safety, reinforcing the series’ recurring theme of connection formed under impossible circumstances. Love is portrayed not as protection, but as something that gives meaning even when survival is uncertain.

The novel deepens The Locked Tomb’s use of unreliable perspective, though in a gentler form. Nona’s limited understanding forces readers to interpret events through implication and emotional truth rather than exposition. The result is a story that feels deceptively simple while carrying immense narrative weight.

Tonally, Nona the Ninth balances tenderness with dread. Moments of joy, humour, and affection coexist with impending catastrophe, creating a poignant meditation on living fully in the present when the future is already lost.

Nona the Ninth is ideal for readers who enjoy Fantasy and Science Fiction that prioritise character, emotion, and thematic depth. Quietly devastating and profoundly human, the novel reframes the epic scope of The Locked Tomb through compassion - asking not how the world ends, but how people choose to love while it does.