Title: Three Dark Crowns
Author: Kendare Blake
Blurb:
When kingdom come, there will be one.
In every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born—three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions.
But becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins.
The last queen standing gets the crown.
Review:
I’ve been meaning to start this series since I finished Anna Dressed in Blood – one of my all-time favorites. Kendare Blake delivers another pretty good story with this one!
Three Dark Crowns follows the lives of a set of triplets destined to kill each other for the right to rule. Katharine, Mirabella, and Arsinoe have been apart since they were six, sent to live with families that would raise them into the queens they need to become. In the end, only one can survive. Going into the story, I thought I’d have a clear favorite, but I found myself loving all three characters. Each sister is strong and flawed, even morally gray – in their own ways, making for a set of very relatable protagonists. Normally when a book jumps between perspectives, there’s always the chapters I rush through in order to get back to the characters I’m most invested in, but that didn’t happen here. I’m fully invested in all three of them, and even some of the secondary characters, like Jules and Natalia.
However, there was one downfall to the book – it moved *extremely* slowly, at least for me. Though the events of the story served to tell us about each of the sisters and the people around them, most of the action happens in the last few chapters, and does fall a little flat once we get there. At the end of the day, I enjoyed it, but it was easy to put down. There was no urgency to find out what would happen next. I’ll still read the sequel, though, and here’s hoping it picks up on the action.
Rating: 4/5
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