Review: The Harpy Knight by Sara Omer

Okay, so it’s not like The Gryphon King was exactly sunshine and rainbows, but the brutal twists, gruesome depravities, and downright evil choices Sara Omer dragged me through in The Harpy Knight were beyond anything I could have expected, and I loved every single second of the pain. This sequel somehow has more action, more conflict, more terrifying yet awe inspiring mythical creatures, more messy queer yearning, more fiercely terrifying women, and more consequences that hurt like an absolute bitch, which happens to be exactly what I want from a good second book.

Even though I reread book one before diving into The Harpy Knight, I genuinely think I would have slipped right back into this world regardless because we start with a bang (literally!!), and then it just refuses to let up. We pick up a few months after the end of The Gryphon King with Bataar’s conquest of the north well underway as he hunts down the traitor Nassar, and armed with everyone’s favourite tragic demon babe Darya, there are very few people capable of standing in his way. Unfortunately for him, controlling Darya still depends on his murder knight fiancée Nohra, who very much has not forgiven him for his role in destroying her family, so cue allll the tension and emotional turmoil!!

“However this had started between them— at Bataar’s urging, to manipulate Nohra— it was hers to enjoy, for as long as she wanted, as long as she could stand, as long as she kept the upper hand and her heart shielded. They were each serving their own interests, but in this blissful moment, all of that fled Nohra’s mind.”

Now, I have historically not been a battle/war girlie, and I don’t think The Harpy Knight magically converted me, but the fact that I still adored this book as much as I did should say everything about Sara Omer’s storytelling. Yes, there are spectacular battles packed with supernatural horrors, murderous princesses riding man-eating pegasi, deeply unsettling unicorns, world- ending djinn, and enough bloodshed to drown in, but I loved that the most brutal battles are happening inside these characters. Literally everyone is fighting a (losing?) war against their own heart, faith, grief, or ambition, and that was infinitely more compelling to me than who happened to be winning on the battlefield.

To me, The Harpy Knight really felt like Nohra’s book, and I think that is exactly why I enjoyed it so much. Watching her get torn apart by her love for Qaira, her thirst for revenge against Bataar, and the increasingly inconvenient fact that she is starting to care about him anyway was deliciously messy. She’s so fierce, terrifying, stubborn, and honestly just a little bit unhinged in the hottest way possible, but I loved seeing the quieter, more vulnerable parts of her too, especially in her relationships with Qaira and Darya. And speaking of Darya… can somebody get this woman literally anything except more trauma, please?! Her struggle with her demon-side was so twisted and tragic that it hurt to read, and yet I still found myself wishing for more chapters from her POV because her journey was beyond fascinating to me.

“Darya was the most incredible creature he’d ever been terrified of. If she killed him, it would be an honor to die by her hand.”

I do have to say that some of the other characters faded into the background a little too much for my liking, including even Bataar. It’s not that he’s any less fascinating, because he’s an incredibly layered hot mess of a man, but so much of his story revolves around military campaigns and religious conflict that I found his chapters slightly less gripping. But then every scene he shared with Qaira and Nohra had me in a complete chokehold, and the way that the messy poly romance dynamic between them all developed had me on the edge of my seat. Also, the whole engagement and wedding storyline had me fully gagged, I swear the infamous Red Wedding has nothing on this mess.

“A wraith in the sky, Nohra’s vows ensured she was Bataar’s to command on the field. Like a golden eagle shooting out of the clouds. His huntress. His Harpy Knight. He’d promised Nohra a wedding night she wouldn’t forget, more blood than any maidenhead. Their bodies would throb tomorrow. Steel scratched an itch deeper than sex.”

And somehow the wedding sequence is only one of many moments that had me staring into the void wondering what fresh hell I had just read (in the most complimentary way possible, obviously). My only slight nitpick is that I found myself turning the pages more out of morbid curiosity over what diabolical thing these disaster humans would do next than because I was truly emotionally invested in anything or anyone, and some of the losses and devastating consequences didn’t hit me quite as hard as I wanted them to. Nassar did manage to get my blood pressure to medically concerning levels though, so I suppose that’s something.

Still, I absolutely devoured The Harpy Knight, and I am somehow both ridiculously excited and genuinely afraid to see how this trilogy is going to end because I know Sara Omer is not about to start showing mercy now. I do hope someone shows Nassar significantly less mercy, though, preferably with a sword. Anyway, If you’re looking for a beautifully diverse, viciously brutal grimdark fantasy in the vein of She Who Became the Sun, The Poppy War, and An Ember in the Ashes, except with a rich Turkic and Kurdish inspired setting, then I cannot recommend The Chaos Installation highly enough.

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are my own. The Harpy Knight is scheduled for release on July 28th, 2026.