Three Dark Crowns

This book was not great. Not terrible either though. And considering my feelings on Anna Dressed in Blood that's really not a huge surprise. Kendare Blake writes to a younger portion of the YA demographic, and has a gift for unique stories and creating some evocative scenes and moments. But her style is...gentle. I was not expecting anything earth-shattering. But with such a great premise as this, I was definitely hoping for more.

The three 16-year-old queens of a remote magical island are sisters Arsinoe, Katharine and Mirabella. In order for one of them to ascend to the throne, the other two must die. Thankfully, they all have super powers to aid them in this endeavor, but sadly Arsinoe and Katharine's powers have yet to manifest, while Mirabella's are flourishing with leaps and bounds. But things aren't that simple. While Mirabella can generate storms and dance with fire, she has intimate memories of her sisters that she's not supposed to have, and the thought of doing them harm paralyzes her. Meanwhile, Katharine may not be able to hold down her belladonna like she should, but she's a masterful poisoner raised by some pretty scary people, and Arsinoe is tough as nails even if she can't make a single bud bloom. It's a great set up, with some really interesting world-building to support it. But I don't think Blake started this story near enough to its end.

The premise of this book is striking, but the storytelling feels lazy. There's a lot of time spent of each of the queens in their own worlds, with their friends and falling in love with boys. I'm not sure why. Katharine's story line with Pietyr was probably the most interesting to me, maybe just because the poisoners seem strange and wicked and glamorous and I am very about that. Mirabella's story also isn't bad since it is more closely tied to the central conflict, but it could have easily been condensed. Her poorly thought out plans to run away multiple times felt silly. Why bother with a contrived reason for Mirabella to bump into Arsinoe when you can just move the story forward instead? We also get an additional perspective in the naturalist world from Arsinoe's adoptive sister, Jules, who is probably the most talented naturalist on the island. We get to know about this cute little love story between Jules and one of her and Arsinoe's childhood friends that goes sour because Mirabella sleeps with him and....hold on, what? This is not the book I signed up for.

Instead of a more tightly wound story involving three queens plotting against each other, we get three insecure young women whose lives are controlled by the more powerful women around them. Instead of poisoner plots and palace intrigue, we get side quests and love triangles. As said, it's not awful. The queens are interesting, well-written characters who carry their stories well, and their world is a rich and intriguing one. But this book plays very light-footed with what should have been a stronger, more dangerous, more plot-driven story.

Despite this, the great question still hangs over the story, generating a lot of mystery. Were Arsinoe and Katharine swapped and are trying to manifest powers that they don't have? Is Jules secretly a queen? Does one of them have one of the other two gifts that a queen could have - the sight or the mysterious war gift? Or is it something even stranger? This is the main reason why I fully intend to read the next book, but I still wish Blake had given us more of a resolution at the end of this book and answered more of those questions. Honestly, Three Dark Crowns doesn't hold its own very well as the first installment in this series. It's not a complete story. It's more like a meandering prologue that features the emotional lives of three girls in a strange situation, and it just so happens to have a wee bit of a climax at the end.

This book is worth reading for the universe and what I am hoping will be the larger story. It's also fairly enjoyable. Not riveting and page-turning but...nice. There are worse things a book can be, I guess.