Three Dark Crowns
Kendare Blake
Katherine the Poisoner, Arsinoe the Naturalist and Mirabella the Elementalist have been doomed to murder each other for the sake of the crown since they were children. The Poisoners have held the island council for many years, but now it could be time for a change with Priestesses wanting their favourite candidate for the throne to win at any cost.
Personally, I think the blurb on GoodReads gives far too much away. You start to get inklings of something being wrong with this generation of Queens as you are reading, and to have them all knocked away before you even start reading would be a serious detriment to your enjoyment of the novel.
I couldn’t decide which Queen I liked the best! I of course felt sorry for Katherine, because she was being poisoned all time and was sickly. But was that just because she was the first Queen introduced in the novel? I’d be interested to hear about the author’s reasoning for which perspectives to display in each order.
The first third of this novel wasn’t riveting enough for me. I couldn’t work out when the dying would occur. Hint, it doesn’t occur in this novel, it might occur in the second (or third, I’m not clear on how many novels will be in this series). I was left with more questions than answers and some intriguing theories about why each of the Queens had odd behaving powers.
I’m not sure there is quite enough depth in there for a re-read, but it certainly has potential if the next novel is as good. 4 stars from me.
Pan Macmillan | 1st October 2016 | AU $16.99 | Paperback
I didn’t know Kendare Blake had a new series out. I seem to be saying that about a lot of books lately since I’ve returned to blogging everyday. Off to see if my library has this one as I couldn’t get into her last couple series (have to revisit them). Glad you enjoyed it.
I didn’t even realise she had written other novels. Let me know how you find this one, and then I’ll make a decision on whether to hunt down her older novels or not!