Introduction

“You cannot kill what is already dead.”

The battle for the Crown has begun, but which of the three sisters will prevail?

With the unforgettable events of the Quickening behind them and the Ascension Year underway, all bets are off. Katharine, once the weak and feeble sister, is stronger than ever before. Arsinoe, after discovering the truth about her powers, must figure out how to make her secret talent work in her favor without anyone finding out. And Mirabella, once thought to be the strongest sister of all and the certain Queen Crowned, faces attacks like never before—ones that put those around her in danger she can’t seem to prevent.

In this enthralling sequel to Kendare Blake’s New York Times bestselling Three Dark Crowns, Fennbirn’s deadliest queens must face the one thing standing in their way of the crown: each other.

My Thoughts

I’m back with the second installment of Kendare Blake’s Three Dark Crowns series. I thought that the second book would lose its momentum after the pace of the first, but BOY was I wrong. The amount of plot twists in this book is absolutely ridiculous and I was loving every minute of it. I slacked on my reading schedule for this week and I truly felt like this was going to have to be another book that delays my reading goal for 2021, but I read a whopping 400 pages today to finish this book and it felt like nothing! Fennbirn is about to go down as another fictional world I would love to live it – but not as a queen, though, I don’t know about having to kill my siblings. Let’s get started:

My review of the first book was intentionally vague because the chaotic ending of Three Dark Crowns was the best part of the book and I didn’t want to spoil it……but now I’ll spoil it. The Quickening ceremony was a disaster! At first I was rooting for Arsinoe to win but that girl has absolutely no talent and I won’t be attached to a character who will easily die first so….Team Mirabella it is.

Now that I’ve had more time with these characters, I can tell you 100% who my favorites are: let’s give it up for Mirabella and Jules. The two strongest women in the series and they’re at odds because of a boy (insert eye roll). I like Arsinoe too but, like I said, she’d dead meat and Katharine is just annoying. At first I pitied her because she was weak and getting abused left and right but now she’s not weak and she gets under my skin.

Katharine’s story is a little too intense to wrap my head around right now but she was thrown to her death by a lover and I guess the island said “not yet, darling” and spat her back out. While Katharine’s revival should be interesting enough on its own, it’s kind of ruined by a second (and equally annoying) love interest being brought into the game.

I’ve honestly been expecting more blood thirstiness and political intrigue between the three sisters since I didn’t get any of that in the first book, but the second book has fallen short a little. Katharine is the blood thirsty character now but she’s very careless and very cruel. I expected a more calculated kind of evil, but she’s mostly getting revenge because people (rightfully) doubted her. And she’s mostly distracted by her new love interest, which also sucks.

Katharine’s story did introduce one thing to the story: the island is alive. Characters have referred to the island as something living several time in the first book, but living in like a spiritual sense. Katherine’s revival means that there are extra powers at work here and the natural balance of the island is one of them.

This book is very much Katharine’s book because (even though I think she’s the most annoying character), she’s certainly got the best storyline.

I think the best plot twist, however, was when we discover that Arsinoe isn’t actually a naturalist….she’s a poisoner [gasp]. No, literally, I audibly gasped in my room when I read that part. Not only is Arsinoe a poisoner, but she’s a strong poisoner. Does this mean that Katherine was actually a naturalist? She did have a pet snake that she adored in the first book. I’m not sure if you can have more than one queen of the same kind in a generation, but I don’t think that matters anymore since Katherine is crazy.

Poisoner Arsinoe completely changed my mind about her, so here’s my ranking of the triplets as of the end of this book: Mirabella> Arsinoe> Katharine. I’ve still got so many questions about Arsinoe being a poisoner, and I hope that’s all answered in the next books, but BOY has it made this story more interesting.

We also got some deaths here! The first book ended with deaths of a few unnamed characters that had no consequence other than making Arsinoe seem like a malevolent naturalist out to kill her sister (which she is supposed to do, anyway) but this time we’ve gotten deaths with names! It’s actually Arsinoe’s fault this time and I love what the guilt did to her.

I’m looking forward to starting the next book this week. Hopefully my finals don’t get in the way, this story is just too good!

Rating

Another 5-star read! I had a lot more good things to say about this book thanks to Katharine, the character that I love to hate.