Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake (2016)

At the age of six, princesses Mirabella, Katherine, and Arsinoe were taken to opposite parts of the island Fennbirn, not to see each other again until they are sixteen, when the will fight to the death for the throne. Each are taken to the community where their predicted powers are celebrated; Katherine to the poisoners, Arsinoe to the naturalists, and Mirabella to the elementals. Over the years, while Mirabella’s power to control weather grows magnificently, Arsinoe can barely grow a flower, and Katherine can’t stomach any poison, no matter how much she ingests. When they turn sixteen, it’s obvious that Mirabella is going to win the throne unless either Arsinoe or Katherine make a power move. However, as it becomes more apparent to all three of them that they need to make a move, they realise that even though they haven’t known each other for ten years, killing each other is harder said than down.

Kendare Blake is known for writing really dark, gory books, and Three Dark Crowns is no exception. I think she’s even been pegged as the Stephen King of Young Adult, which I think is appropriate. The only other book I’ve read by her is Anna Dressed in Blood, her debut novel. I read it a long time ago, but I do remember that it had a lot of horror elements, so I was excited to see how she would mix horror with fantasy in this one. I have to say, I was impressed, but there were bumps along the way.

Going into this book, I really didn’t know anything about it besides the fact that it dealt with three queens fighting for a crown. The story opens up from Katherine’s point of view, and I thought that this would only be Katherine’s story. But, after her chapter was Arsinoe, and then Mirabella’s. Generally, I really like having a multiple point of view, but I found it to be really hard to fit it into this book. The main reason why was because for a lot of the book, the chapter’s were fairly long. This meant I only heard from each girl every sixty pages or so. I think in order to do multiply point of view, the reader should always have those perspectives current, instead of waiting so long to hear them.

I also just had a hard time getting into this book. A lot of it was the world building. There was a lot of holes, and not a lot of explanations. It felt like every page lasted ten, and was boring. That is, until it hit around the one hundred seventy page mark. All of a sudden, everything exploded. Stuff went down, and this book became a lot more entertaining. First of all, the romance became top notch. Before, it was sweet, but I didn’t really pay attention to it. And then the romance became political, and the stakes for things working out (or not working out) became a lot higher. Then, and probably partly because of the various romances, the girls started actually thinking about the custom they were going to be taking a part in. The fact that they had to kill their other sisters started weighing on the morally, which led them to ask other moral based questions about the life they lead.

I went on a roller coaster with these characters. Right off the bat, both Katherine and Arsinoe were bashing Mirabella, and it didn’t help that Mirabella was the third of three point of views introduced. So, I was already fifty or so pages in until I even met Mirabella, and I had already heard so many bad things about her. It was a little hard to shake those bad feeling off and focus on Mirabella herself, but I actually really liked. She was a little naive, but also very pure and sweet. I liked Katherine as well. Not so much toward the beginning, mostly because she thought so lowly of herself. I then thought lowly of her, but as her confidence grew, so did my liking for her. Lastly, there was Arsinoe, probably my least favorite. While I admired her ferociousness, she honestly did the most idiotic things.  

Not my favorite, but still offering a great story, I am looking forward to seeing where the sequel goes.

3 Stars