"When kingdom come, there will be one.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 stomach-ache. 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."
It's about three sisters, three queens, essentially competing for the throne. They - Katharine, Arsinoe and Mirabella - each live in different parts of the land, each have a different power, and each have a different group of supporters aiding them. This is an "in every generation, there are three chosen ones..." kind of thing. However, throughout the generations, only one sister can claim the throne, and she must do so by murdering the other two.
In this case, Katharine is a poisoner who wields deadly cocktails; Arsinoe is a naturalist - at one with nature and animals - and not very good at it (nobody expects her to win the throne); Mirabella is an elemental and clearly the strongest of the three, her powers by far the most developed.
It sounds quite exciting, but it is far too slow and quiet a telling for such a nasty premise. The first three quarters are just boring. They needed a shot of excitement. Most of the book consists of the girls honing their skills in their own private locations and having flirtations with their love interests. It is painfully hard to not yawn, put the book down, and go find something more riveting to do. Like watching paint dry, for example.
I am not exaggerating. So little happens - there is no action, no drama, no excitement until near the end. And, by that point, how much do we really care? I don't know about you, but if I've spent most of a book being bored out of my mind, I'm not going to suddenly become invested when the pacing picks up.
The book flits between third-person perspectives and, truly, none of them are interesting. Arsinoe mostly wanders around being useless and watching the romance between Jules and Joseph. Mirabella repeatedly plays with the elements, conjuring earthquakes and towers of fire. Katharine is perhaps most interesting, but mainly because she's dealing with scars and blisters from the latest poison she's ingested. That should tell you something about the bar for excitement in this book - the highlights are when one of the characters is sick from poisoning. Problem is, the three queens don't really get their hands dirty for the most part. Their stories are not bloody and political like I hoped they would be, they are rather quiet and sometimes romantic.
The romance itself isn't good either. Each sister has her own POV and love interest, but because of the multiple-POVs, none of them are fleshed out. Other than the sisters, side characters like Jules and Natalia have point-of-view chapters, too. It's a curious mixture of too much going on yet nothing happens. While I'm glad each sister queen has the chance to tell her side of the story, the feeling is dampened when it becomes a detriment rather than an advantage.
Joseph flings himself in front of a bear to protect Mirabella after knowing her for two days. TWO. DAYS. He is also an asshat of the highest order. He makes out with Mirabella, freaks out because he's cheating on Jules, then continues kissing her. What the actual fuck. I fail to see what the point of this book was. What is the lesson here? Other than reading about horny brainless teenagers cheating left and right and dumb-as-hell girls being controlled by men because they weren’t given (by the author) the mental capacity to stand up for themselves. I mean, what does the reader get out of this horrid experience?
Perhaps it's the way Three Dark Crowns is written, but I couldn't relate to any of the sisters. It's third-person narrative at its worst, flat and emotionless. Plus, the sisters are individually insufferable. Katharine is a cowering sack of flour. Mirabella is a starry-eyed idealist with poor planning skills. Arinsoe reads like she's twelve and stamps her foot, pretending to be a strong female, but makes mistake after mistake.
Some of their plotlines make no sense. Take Katharine's for instance. She receives seduction lessons from Pietyr, nephew of her mentor Natalia, to ensure her sisters do not get suitors. What's the point? So Mirabella and Arinsoe don't get suitors at the Quickening, a festival after which they can begin killing each other. They're humiliated and will probably act more ruthlessly against Katharine during in the coming year. Getting a king-consort isn't essential to winning the crown. It's just a way to set up her romance. I would rather see her sabotaging her sisters to make up for her weak gift, or work through the Black Council to push through a law that determines only a poisoner can be crowned.
There's a brilliant opportunity for female friendship, which is absolutely squandered. Jules, through which we first see Arinsoe, could have been a real breakout character. Yet she seems more interested in her boyfriend Joseph than her BFF's impending death. One of the reasons Three Dark Crowns' premise appealed to me is that it could morph into a beautiful story of girl power and sisterhood. Sadly, Jules's storyline is reflective of the actual product.
On whole, Three Dark Crowns feels like a prequel. The last 20% is interesting and should have been put in the front after a few lead-in chapters, the romances woven along the excitement and danger of the Ascension Year. As it currently stands, we have to wait until the next book to see the queens fight it out. I will read the next book because of Arsione's reveal at the very end of the book and we will have to see if it hots up.
Age Rating 13+. Nothing untoward. Stock standard YA.
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