Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake

3 stars! This review will be spoiler free!

Synopsis:

This is the first book in the Three Dark Queens series by Kendare Blake. There are three triplet queens with three different gifts: Arsinoe is the naturalist, able to control animals and bloom plants. Katharine is a poisoner, able to ingest poisons without feelings any of its consequences. Lastly, there's Mirabella the elemental, able to control earth, wind, water, and fire. Each were raised by people with their prospective powers and are to display their gifts at a holiday called Beltane. Afterwards, the queens are meant to use their gifts to kill the other queens to become to ruling queen of Fennbirn. However! Two of the queens are extremely weak if not powerless, while one is the strongest anyone has met in very long time.

Thoughts:

Gave this book 3 stars after thinking on it for a while. I genuinely thought the basis of this book was unique, but also thought the plot was predictable. I truly called the ending from within the first five chapters because the foreshadowing is super obvious. The beginning of the book was very slow. I attribute that to the fact that you are constantly switching perspective between the three queens and so it takes quite a while to get to know each of them. Once the ball gets rolling though, the story gets intense pretty quickly. The whole second half of the book was fast paced and addicting to read. Then with the different POV's and cliffhangers at the end of each chapter, the book becomes really hard to put down. Leading up to the Beltane festival, I found it hard to pick a side honestly. I think in order of preference I like 1) Mirabella, 2) Arsinoe, 3) Katharine.

The details of how each of the different powers worked was well explained. I especially liked how there was more to their magic than face value. But then there's the glaring fact that how the triplets are born/separated/raised is kinda left up to you to figure out. I wish we were told at least how it works. Or if it was, I just didn't catch it and at times I was left really confused. The governmental system is also left as just a name, you don't really know much about it or how it works. I wish the world building was much much much stronger. Luckily by the end I was pretty hooked or I wouldn't want to continue with this series. That ending was absolutely worth it.

Plot:

I LOVE the fact that this book is based in a matriarchal society. The women rule. The queens word is law. Women are taken seriously and powerfully. I absolutely freakin' love that. Then, you have these three queens. All with vastly different personalities. I don't know how Kendare did it, but she managed to create three very interesting and very diverse sisters. Granted, I love Mirabella, like Arsinoe, and kinda sorta just tolerate Katharine, but that's just my preference. I think I liked Mirabella most because she had the background that was most interesting to me; being ruled over by the Temple and having to overcome that while also being favored for the Quickening, but not wanting to cause harm to her sisters. Arsinoe was had one of those dry humor, tomboy type personalities that just make me laugh with witty comebacks. Katharine annoyed me mostly because all she was made to do was flirt her way to winning, which really made no sense to me? Also, some of the people in her household were unnecessarily cruel/evil and I didn't like that.

All three queens were presented with love interests, but this doesn't really take the forefront of the story, except possibly Mirabella's because that was a whole muddled mess that I am living for! The drama caused by the scandal and the heartache actually caught my emotions.

Now, let's talk about Beltane. While reading this book you may find yourself asking, "well when are they going to start trying to kill each other?" and trust you will be asking yourself this question for almost the entirety of the book. I don't think this was marketed well when it come to the synops and how there's this life or death game the queens have to play to win the crown. It's not like that at all. It's really more just getting to know the queens. It's like an introductory book. And now you can understand why the beginning was so utterly slow. It's because you're spending so much time trying to get to know the queens and the land, but you keep jumping around the POV's.

Thing finally do get really spiced up at the end though. Kendare made excellent use of the multiple POV's towards the end, leaving almost every switch off with a cliffhanger. I very very very much enjoyed those last chapters because so much went down that you need the next book to clarify it all. It's like you were hit with bam, bam bam! A bunch of different reveals, but you don't know in which direction they're heading. It's for that reason and that reason alone that I have to continue reading this series. It just makes you want to know what happens next.

Characters: (these pictures seemed super nifty)

Side characters:

There are SO MANY. It takes quite a while to get them all straight in your head, but thankfully they don't all have super weird names so you don't need to take notes. Many of them were left kind of flat sadly. I think this book could have benefitted from less characters, but I do like some of them a lot: Elizabeth (on of Mira's priestess's), Junior/Billy (Arsinoe's ever loyal suitor), and JULES OF COURSE. Because Jules is a total badass. The equivalent to Mirabella's war gift.

Overall:

I'm definitely intrigued enough to want to continue the series. I hope the sequel doesn't start off so slow, but I am very hopeful nonetheless.

Three Dark Crowns review | 3 stars

One Dark Throne review | 3.75 stars

Two Dark Reigns review | 3 stars

Five Dark Fates review | 4.5 stars