Three Sisters, yet only One Throne. Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake – A Book Review
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Three dark queens
are born in a glen,
sweet little triplets
will never be friends
Three dark queens
all fair to be seen,
two to devour
and one to be Queen.
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.
I picked up this book from my local Target store and was immediately intrigued by the summary and the lovely cover. As a fan of high fantasy, it really made me interested with the promise of it being a dark tale filled with a lot of political themes. For some book people I follow online, a majority have actually dropped the book on the basis of very slow pacing and way too much political warfare. For me, I'm not much of a fan combat battles and the like when it comes to reading - which was the one of the reasons I wanted to read it. Yet also, I just wanted to see for myself just how bad the book was. And after having finished the book just an hour ago before writing this, there is only one small phrase I could say about it: anti-climatic and filled with wasted potential.
Many people who have reviewed the book before were absolutely correct when it came to the pacing of the novel: it was incredibly slow. In an approximately four hundred page book, a majority of the more significant action/events only occurred within perhaps the last hundred pages - give or take. After the first quarter of the book, I was bored out of my mind and was tempted to just dropped the book altogether. However, I just continued to trudge my way through it. In addition to the slow pacing of the book, for me- a majority of the events were quite predictable and I just wasn't surprised. There was supposedly a plot twist at the end but I already figured that out in the beginning.
There was really no climax in the book and it was really tedious.
As for those who say that there is way too much political warfare in the novel, I highly disagree in this aspect. In fact, from my own personal feeling, I feel like there is a complete lack of political intrigue. I have honestly expected for all three queens (Mirabella, Arsinoe, and Katharine) to be scheming and plotting against each other, rallying people for support, manipulating others- you know, actually being a real politician. However, I was disappointed to see that there was none of it and most of the political scheming came from the side-characters from each girls' respective social circles. For the girls, in the most general sense- were more preoccupied with their love interests or in improving their powers... mainly leaning more towards the former.
From an intense tale of politics, battles, gaining power, scheming to kill... it became your average teenage love story placed in a dark setting. It was way too romance-driven than I expected.
Nonetheless, the world building in the novel was fairly fine. I don't know whether it was due to the slow pacing, the constant change in perspective, or simply the writing itself- the world that is Fennbirn felt really one-note. The setting was where I felt there was some wasted potential in it. From my opinion, I feel like there could have been more that Blake could have shared with us about the world and it's matriarchal society (which is quite a fresh change and I like it). Yet, with how the book is, the world didn't really show off a wow magic factor. Perhaps it's because the writer placed so much emphasis on the characters. Aside from that, what makes the world building fine as said in the beginning was that in the end- I simply had so many questions about the world. I still wanted to learn more about it.
For the characters, I really can't say much without giving spoilers about the book. I'll just say that I am disappointed with how under-developed and underwhelming they actually were compared to how the story's summary made them sound like. I was expecting to be more on the cold, serious, manipulative. Instead, they were more good-hearted than I expected to be. Okay, do not misunderstand. Being good-hearted is not a bad thing but when you make the story sound like intense and dark like that... hopefully, you'll understand where I'm coming from? That's for the main protagonists, as for the side characters? Honestly, there are way too many and I cannot remember them all. The side characters were not introduced properly and they were not fleshed out well. Like if only we can take George R.R. Martin's side character writing into this book...
Would I buy the next book? Yes, I will. The questions that I continue to have about the setting as well as the genuine curiosity of who will actually end up being Queen. Although, if the pacing continues to be as slow in the next book and the author pulls a Sarah J. Maas on me, I doubt that I'll continue writing the series by then.
Overall Book Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Stars.
–––––––––––– HERE IS THE SPOILER SECTION OF THE REVIEW ––––––––––––
[ please read at your own discretion, you have been warned ]
What in actual tarnation is this book? It is absolutely wasted potential right here. You do not give me a dark epic that was supposed to be filled with political warfare only to give me this godforsaken teenage romance story that is supposedly place in a dark setting.. like Twilight (in which you got your teenage romance place in a dark setting aka vampire world). I was thiiiiiiiiis close to just DNF'ing it and just looking up the plot online. Goddamn, I feel quite disappointed. I already addressed the plot momentum and the lack of political warfare (I'll actually talk more about it later on), but now let me talk about the characters... starting from the oldest sister-queen.
Mirabella. Oh, Mirabella. Of all three sisters, it was obvious from the start to the finish that she is the most powerful of them all. Her gift was manifested at a very early age. As her powers are of controlling all of the elements (cue Avatar: The Last Airbender here, my childhood!), even I believed that she would end up winning in the end. No matter what power you have, you can really go against the storm. I was expected her to be this really strong (as in physical prowess) warrior queen, who will destroy everyone in her path if they dare cross her. A quote that I thought would have really suited her was this:
Fate whispers to the warrior, "You cannot withstand the storm."
The warrior replies, "I am the storm."
I was really expecting this warrior queen who also has her flaws like- due to her time spent in the temples- she was on the break of madness, complete insanity. She is stubborn, feisty, short-tempered. Perhaps I set the standards way too high for Mirabella because out of all three sisters, she was my least favorite of the sister-queens and ended up disappointing me the most. She ends up being incredibly weaker (in terms of personality) than I had expected. She is kind, soft-spoken in a sense, good-hearted, innocent. She sincerely does not want to kill her sisters, often having nightmares about it, and wants to befriend them as seen from her interactions with Arsinoe.
In addition to her gentle personality, we are given this completely pathetic insta-love and love triangle with her and Joseph Sandrin - who plays a more significant part in Arsinoe's perspective and I'll get into that fxckboy later. She has only known him for five minutes and now they're madly in love and sleeping together. I find this to be completely unnecessary and stupid. Not only that, she is completely naive. She yearns for him, she wants to be with him, she can't stay away. She doesn't want to kill her sisters, she still loves them. Despite her powerful gift, this naivety of hers isn't going to get her the crown. Those temple followers of hers are going to do for her, and they are.
Speaking of her temple followers, she is absolutely loyal to the temple in the novel. It has been implied in the book that whichever queen wins, that political faction (for example, if Arsinoe wins- all the naturalists would take over council and all) will also win and take over the state. From a sort of objective point of view, religion and the matters of state should be completely separate. Aside from her friends such as Elizabeth and Bree (who are also one-note characters and had the potential to become more and form this strong friendship with Mirabella), all the priestesses characters are just plotting and scheming... that religion and those priestesses are pretty messed up, I'll leave it at that. Back to Mirabella–
I know a lot of people are really rooting for Mirabella, they're really loving her. From my perspective, this is the character that the book is forcing me to really like and I don't like that. I don't like Mirabella in any way shape or form. I sincerely hope that her character improves by the next book. In a sense, she reminds me of Princess Farya from the show Magnificent Century: Kosem. Both of which are these perfect princesses, who are also badass due to their skills, and have no flaws whatsoever. She is the sister-queen I hope doesn't win. Her naivety and lack of political skills (she shows no knowledge of being a politician from my observation) isn't going to win her the crown.
The next sister-queen we have is Arsinoe, which I mistakenly read as "arsenic" when I first read the summary. I honestly felt a bit confused since with a name like that, wouldn't she suit being a poisoner better? In the end, it is revealed that she is in a fact a poisoner... although for me, this just raises so many more questions that I will address later. Compared to Mirabella, I do not necessarily dislike Arsinoe. She has that sort of strong, I-don't-give-a-fuck, somewhat in tune with nature personality. My expectation of her was that she was going to be a bit more gentle of the three. Basically take my expectations and realities of both Arsinoe and Mirabella and switch them.
It took awhile for Arsinoe to really grow onto me, which I blame mostly because her chapters are always so focused on the whole Jules and Joseph love crisis. I have nothing against Jules as she is an awesome naturalist with a mountain cat familiar who deserves better. Joseph can be drowned in the sea for all I care. He claims that he absolutely love Jules and wants to be with her, but the minute he was introduced- I just knew he was going to make things worse. He was shady, sketchy, and I don't like him. And when he and Mirabella got together- that was end. Now at the end of of the book when Jules nearly dies, he goes crying back to her. Hell no, bitch. Get the fxck away from Jules. Go the fxck away from Jules and Arsinoe and never come back, you hypocrite. As for your Madrigal (shout out to 39 Clues, my childhood!), you can stay away too.
Okay, back to Arsinoe– she is essentially the people's queen. Like all the sister-queen's here, she is not a politician (as from what the story implies, none of the girls are trained to be politically inept). However, she is the people's Queen. She gets along with mostly everyone from Wolf Spring, despite them also thinking at the same time that she's the weakest of them all. She doesn't really care about being regal- she's just living her life before she gets killed in the end. I love her interaction with Jules and there was so much potential in developing their friendship (had it not been for fxckboy over here). Her interactions with Billy were quite nice too. They're not infatuated with each other, but there's still a chemistry between them that can grow. He's becoming fond of her.
Another aspect of Arsinoe that I quite like is her dabbling in low magic. As a naturalist, her powers have not manifested properly yet. She can do tiny stuff but she can't really complete it. She can't bloom the reddest of roses or control beasts. She's been trained in it but she can't do so (due to her poisoner gift, I'll talk about it later in the entry). Her magical aspect of her character is made up by her dabbling in this low magic. It was really quite interested to read about and knowing that there's a different form of magic outside of what's considered proper (like naturalist, poisoner, elemental and the like). Seeing how she has knowledge of low magic and naturalist powers (and eventually poisoner, I assume)- she's gonna be one heck of a powerhouse of she can channel all three together.
If Katharine won't become queen, I'll be perfectly content if Arsinoe becomes queen. She's a bit of an all-rounded for me- though not a politician as she should be, she's still generally a people's queen. She's quite likeable, has some experience with magic, and her supporters - her real friends - are generally with her and have her interests in mind. It'll be extremely interesting seeing her rise to power if she becomes queen in the end- she used to be the weakest but now she's gaining power. She's going to gain power and she's going to rise. I can predict that she'll become a force to be reckon with in the next book, especially with her poisoner power revelation.
And now we have the youngest sister-queen, Katharine. From the beginning, it's been written that Katharine is the weakest of the three sister-queens in terms of not only her magic but also her physical strength. She is a poisoner in which she can supposedly ingest the deadliest of poisons without getting even a single rash or stomachache. However, that is not the case as her gift has not even manifested yet. Due to training, she has gained some immunity to certain poisons but not all. She still gets sick, her entire body is covered with scars and scabs, and her body is described to be extreme thin and bony due to the damage.
I did not have much expectations about Katharine's character. I was not a fan of her gift of being a Poisoner (it just doesn't sound that cool or magical) and she was just in a middle compared to what I expected to be the warrior queen Mirabella and the gentle Arsinoe. She was just there, right in the middle. The fact that I didn't have expectations is probably what made me like her the most. I wasn't disappointed in the end and went blind when it comes to her sections.
Unlike the other two sister-queens, Katharine ended up being my favorite of them all. I felt more invested in her storyline compared to the other three... even though there are slightly less of her chapters compared to say Mirabella or Arsinoe. I felt really interested in her character as she's constantly struggling to improve at her gift and is constantly under pressure to perform to people's standards. In the novel, it has been said that Poisoner queens have been ruling for many many years now. If I recall, there were three or four Poisoner queens before Katharine. In that sense, I can really feel like I can relate to Katharine as I do struggle to improve and live up to people's standards. I guess you could say that it was the reason why I enjoyed reading her section the most.
In addition, while there are so many side-characters in the book that I simply cannot remember, I find that I am able to remember Katharine's more significant characters the most - mainly Natalia and Pietyr. For me, I think of Natalia is this very poised and regal woman - who is very politically savvy. Pietyr's interactions with Katharine was quite likable for me, if you compare them to Mirabella and Joseph. There was chemistry between them and they did get to know more about each other (not like insta-love). Although Pietyr really messes this shxt up when he pushed Katharine down to her supposed death. I understand that he loves her and would rather see her die like that, but she's alive and she wants her revenge.
Speaking of her revenge, out of all the sister-queens- Katharine probably was the only one who fulfilled my standard of seeing a dark and cold queen. The brief description of her at the end with Natalia was just brutal. Now this Poisoner queen is furious, cold, that near-death experience completely changed her and traumatized her. This was her quote when she said to Natalia–
"I want my revenge and then I want my crown."
THIS IS IT. THIS IS THE DARK, POWER-HUNGRY, COLD QUEEN I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ENTIRE BOOK, OKAY? Because of this ending for Katharine, I feel very excited to see how she will act in the next book. She's no longer going to be the sweet person she was before. I can predict that she will be absolutely brutal with her poisoning skills and she will definitely not get along with Arsinoe once she learns of her sister-queen's real gift. Now, if we can have Natalia and Arron family make her more political savvy and power-hungry... that'll just be icing on the cake. That'll be my perfect dark, evil queen.
Since I've invested so much time into discussing the main three characters, I'll just go into other things about the book. I honestly have so many questions about the world. As the book takes place in a very matriarchal society, it was a fresh change for me and interesting to read. However, I still have so many questions about the world. And I'm just going to list a few of them out–
1. It is the norm for the queen to give birth to three girls, sometimes the very rare fourth baby who automatically becomes queen as she is the Blue Queen. What would happen if there are less than three children? What would happen if there was a boy?
2. Arsinoe and Katharine have been assumed to have been switched. However, this needs to be more specified. Does Arsinoe have two gifts (poisoner and naturalist) and Katharine is still a poisoner, or is Arsinoe a poisoner (never a naturalist) and Katharine a naturalist (even though aside from her snake, there hasn't been any other instances of naturalist powers)? Am I thinking too much into this?
3. Is it because a queen's reign can vary in length that the queens are raised not to be as politically savvy? Do their political factions run the control for them then? Wouldn't they be puppet queens in a sense? If so, because there are more powerful poisoners or naturalists- wouldn't it be easier for the people to rebel or are they just not doing so because of the religion?
Honestly, I feel like I'm just being really dumb when it comes to my questions and probably simply missed the answer or something. To anyone who has carefully read the book, please kindly comment down below. /whacked; I will read the next book, because I'm interested in seeing how the story will progress. However, if the momentum continues to be slow and/or the author pulls a Sarah J. Maas on me- I can't do it. Honestly, I think that's it. I've gone through all of my notes of what I wanted to talk about. Overall, it's not the best book due to how romance drive it was and how the summary really did not reflect what the actual story was. It was just a bunch of wasted first book potential. Yet, still quite interesting and could improve.
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So those are my thoughts on Three Dark Crowns by Kandare Blake. I'm glad that I wouldn't have to wait longer for the next book which should be out in a few months! To anyone who has read the book, what did you like about it? What did you dislike about it? Which queen are you rooting for? I'm still on #TeamKatharine but that could change in the next book depending on what's been written. Until my next review, see you~
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