"It was only a joke. Of course I do not wish that. No one really wishes to be a queen."

I am very conflicted about this one. It took ages - and I stress ages - to finally get somewhere in the story. There are a few reasons for this but none of them make it easier to keep reading the story.

You have to push to get to half way - because it will get better. But even then, this story isn't great. It's a lot to slog through 3 POV. The world building is pretty scant - enough that I still don't think this all makes sense. And the reasoning behind the queens and the priestesses plan seems silly - I mean, how did no one come up with the same plan at any point.

And couldn't ONE girl throw the whole thing off if she just decided to get pregnant before the ritual thing? What do they do if one of them suddenly has the next heir? Or possibly triplets?

But, as always with this author, the characters were interesting and the plot and end was enough that I plan to read book 2. But you should know going into this one that NOTHING Is decided by the end I wish I'd known. ( )

While a friend was staying with me recently, she picked ‘Three Dark Crowns’ off my library book pile and stayed up all night reading the whole thing. This is a definite hazard of visiting my home. Once I started the book myself, I could see what she meant and read it all in an evening. It’s a very readable, escapist fantasy world in which nearly all the main characters are women. The few male main characters are mostly love interests, which is in itself delightfully escapist. Although the central conceit sounded fanciful to the point of ridicule in the blurb, it actually worked very well. Triplet sisters are born every generation and must battle to become sole ruler, until they give birth to triplets in turn and must go into exile. What elevates this premise is that fact that vested interests and politics have developed around such an odd tradition. Fantasy worlds must always convince you of why the status quo exists. Or why it’s collapsing, as in [b:The Fifth Season|19161852|The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)|N.K. Jemisin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386803701s/19161852.jpg|26115977]. Blake shows how the aristocracy and religious elite surrounding the triplets keep the bizarre rituals in place, as well as deftly acknowledging the world beyond this strange island. It’s good to know that the place is considered eccentric! Magic appears to be a matter of prestige, underlying the vaguely feudal class system, rather than having a great deal of practical use. Applied or ‘low’ magic is seen as suspect. This certainly isn’t one of those fantasy worlds where magic is a substitute for electricity, oil, and computers.

At the end of the book, I found myself very invested in where the story goes. I’ve been reading more fantasy than usual recently, despite preferring sci-fi for many years. Perhaps I’ve finally found some good fantasy recommendations? I think it’s also about escapism, and possibly because I've always loved weirdness in my fiction. Am I wrong in suspecting that sci-fi isn’t as weird as it used to be? Perhaps because it’s been overtaken by an understandable pessimistic and dystopian tendency? Far-future post-scarcity strangeness feels like a phenomenon of 20th century sci-fi. (I’m speculating from a limited sample size here, obviously, and haven’t done actual research.) Anyway, the point is that I found ‘Three Dark Crowns’ distinctively strange. The poison magic was especially peculiar: training one of the queens to resist poisons, despite the fact that they’re her weapon and her sisters wouldn’t ever try to poison her. Thus I found Katherine the most interesting sister, although all three were intriguing. The least appealing elements of the narrative were the romances, as the characters are basically all sixteen years old. Teenage romance isn’t of great interest to me, although Katherine and Arsinoe’s pragmatic attitudes were nicely done. Whichever queen survives the fight to the death would obviously have to make a political marriage.

As I’m definitely going to hunt down the sequel in the library, might as well speculate about what I’d like to find in it. I’m really hoping the mother of the triplets shows up, perhaps returning from exile to explain why she told two of her daughters that they had the wrong magical gift. Also, I’m very pleased by the possibility of the sisters teaming up to tear down the system that pits them against each other for no reason. I wouldn’t expect the first book to fully embrace that possibility, but it laid the groundwork for this to happen later. I would also welcome more descriptions of outfits and fewer of poisonings. ( )

*rec'd by Claudia Morcate-Martin as "hunger games but with triplets

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Its a pretty quick and easy read. It's nothing that's blowing me away, but I'm definitely enjoying reading it and finding that I can't anticipate what will happen as I usually do, which is a delight. I also love some of the dark ironies in the book's plot, and am morbidly fascinated with what will go wrong for each girl next. The writing also just has some interesting moments in a linguistic sense, when I just pause to re-read a sentence and enjoy the way it sounds or how it is written. The characters have an impressive amount of depth for having to split the book between three of them with rotating perspective chapters.

A fantasy YA book that I can't predict is a dream! Immediately starting the second book---so you know it's good. ( )

I think it's best going into this book not knowing much at all. I had kind of the same issue with this one as I did with Heartless. There's one main event that I was looking forward to and seeing what happens but of course that doesn't happen till the end and so until we got to that part, I felt things moved a little slow. It was a lot of build up, which I understand why but I just really wanted to get to the main event. The one downside was there were a lot of characters in here and it sometimes got confusing trying to keep straight who is on whose side and their relationship with each other. There was a twist at the end that I didn't expect and I loved it. I really enjoyed the ending and the surprises, can't wait to get to the next book. ( )

This might be my new favorite book. It's everything I love in a fantasy, beautiful imagery, a little bit creepy and dangerous, snarky dialogue and animal familiars! I went in cold, hadn't read a summary (I do this a lot) and had no idea what to expect. From the beginning it was a frightening but compelling read. The stakes are high and every turned page had me wondering who would be first to die. It's stressful but also whimsical, which is a hard balance to strike. Even the supporting cast was compelling. I loved how the main characters were changed over the course of the story, and the twist at the end left me reeling! I eagerly await the sequel. ( )

Representation: N/A?
Trigger warnings: Blood depiction, animal attack, near-death experiences, poisoning
Score: Six points out of ten.
This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.

I picked this up from one of the two libraries I go to and I didn't know what to expect at first since this is the first book in a series and from an author I've never read from, I was sick and tired of realistic books so I switched to a fantasy, however I found like 90% of it underwhelming and tedious to read and the remaining 10% was at breakneck speed with so much action and a cliffhanger so where do I even begin? Did I mention this was nothing what I expected since I thought I was going to get a fight to the death instead nothing much happens at all. It starts with the main characters Mirabella, Katharine and Arsinoe and they are all queens living in the same collective place but different locations which I liked however the world building is just lacking since I had so many questions like how did these countries come to be, why is it that once every few hundred years two queens are born with such weak gifts and only one is born with a strong gift and she is called a White-Handed Queen and people call the year that happens a "Sacrificial Year" where the strong queen doesn't have to kill the other queens but then what is the Blue Queen then? So hard to wrap my head around. As I said before this was a slow burn because in the first 300 pages nothing much happens except the book telling me what is happening right now in Katharine, Mirabella and Arsinoe's lives and all the other characters as well, I had two main problems with this. First off none of them are developed or fleshed out and second off there are just too many of them, why do I have to keep track of every single minor character like Jules, Elizabeth, Bree, you get the idea. In the end there was a festival called a Gave Noir where someone must kill two queens but surprisingly all of them survive ending this on a cliffhanger. Wow. I'm not sure if I want to read from this series or from this author again. ( )

Three queens competing for one crown--three sisters raised separate so that they will kill each other to determine the next ruler of Fennbirn. A story of magic, politics, intrigue, and the love (and hate) of sisters. Loved it. ( )

ETA after a reread years later: I stand by this entire review still!


I love teen books where people live in dystopian societies and have to kill each other, so OBVIOUSLY I was excited to read this. Especially since it was a about sisters and promised to be about more than just a stupid romance.

And it was! Hah, I realize I made it sound like that part disappointed me, but it did not. There's some romance in it, sure, but it's good, and it's not one girl and one boy against the world, so it's very refreshing in that way.

The thing that did put me off at first was the writing, which feels a bit ... amateurish. It's written in present tense and like omnious POV and that didn't sit right with me, especially since it leads to so much tell don't show, especially in the beginning. But it definitely is not a book that could do first person, there's too many characters and too much going on for that to work. And I think it got better the more I read.

Some things in the world-building is a bit off, like what the fuck kind of power is "can eat a lot of poison" and who CARES if she can't if she's also very good at poisoning people? But if you accept that it is a power and that it does matter, then it works.

The ending was not what I expected and I'm very curious about the sequel, which I'm probs gonna buy as soon as money decides to come my way. ( )

An interesting premise but I didn't connect much to any of the characters. And I didn't really understand the worldbuilding. The island is cloaked or something? They don't really like outsiders? But they banish people to the mainland and mainlanders are brought in to marry the crowned queen? Why? What purpose does it serve? ( )

After loving Anna Dressed in Blood, I’m sad to rate this so low, but I just never got on board with this world. Maybe it was the poisoners. That whole culture struck me as preposterous, and I was always disappointed when the story looped back to them, especially seduction practice with Pietyr. Boo.
I liked the naturalists the most, especially Jules, but the love triangle was annoying. I wasn’t thrilled with the “low magic” shenanigans either, as it seemed to function as both conflict-generator and quick-fix machine.
I was really hoping this would turn out, ultimately, to be about the queens banding together to fight their weird religion and refuse to follow their supposed destiny. I predict it probably will end with at least two of them left on the same side, but I really don’t enjoy this world enough to spend any more time in it. It was only OK on audio, which I did for the first half before switching to print. ( )

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 stomachache. 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. ( )

I found this book ok. It had good parts and bad parts, but I’m not sure whether I will read the sequel.

The premise was interesting, but there are so many characters introduced in the first chapters that I found it extremely hard to keep up with who was who and who was important. Another thing that bothered me was the very slow start. There was no plotting, strategizing or evil scheming anywhere for the first 250 pages.
But what really enraged me was how Mirabella saves a sailor from drowning, drags him to a cave and starts kissing him as soon as he is awake. What?
It is only made worse by the fact that their love is apparently completely serious and they continue to want each other for the rest of the book. Why? How?

The book became more interesting after page 250 or so with each character’s supporters making plants on how to get their queen to win. The plans to get each queen to win kept me on my toes and in my opinion it was the best part of the book. The climax was great, with each queen showing her skill and everything spiraling out of control.
That's what I wanted from this book!
What I did not get is why Katherine was pushed off that cliff and how the heck she survived, but hey, it is the first book and it would make no sense to kill off one of the main characters so early.

Another thing I liked was how the book switched POV’s between the three queens. I honestly do not know who to root for because they were all likeable. Their companions were nice too, I especially liked sweet Elizabeth and ice queen Natalia.
My favourite relationship was the one between Arsinoe and Billy. I expected a cliche romance but I got an incredibly cute friendship. ( )

DNF. The writing was okay but, like a lot of previous reviews say, there's just not enough action to keep me interested. The poisoner was interesting but then the elemental dragged so much I just couldn't go on. ( )

《Three Black Witches are born in a glen,
Sweet little triplets
Will never be friends.
Three Black Witches, all fair to be seen.
Two to devour,
And one to be queen.》

The ending. THAT ENDING ALMOST KILLED ME.
DAYUM!!! Just give me the next book, I'm begging you!!!!! ( )

At first I wasn't crazy about this book because I had a hard time keeping all the characters straight. There are a lot of characters. By the end, though. Oh, the twists and turns made it very exciting. ( )

What are they to do when 3 sisters are born of the island and expected to fight to the death to become the one true Queen? While the beginning is slow moving as you get to know and understand the characters, the action and intrigue are deepened by that knowledge. ( )

I really enjoyed this. The characters were dynamic and well thought out. The island is super interesting. The plot of three magically gifted sisters vying to be the sole queen is enthralling. I just kept wanting to know more. There were a few things that were fairly predictable, but i thoroughly enjoyed the book overall. ( )

Such a gifted writer. While I often read my teenager's YA books so we can chat about them, it's somewhat unusual for me to really dig the stories. Blake's imaginative storytelling and intriguing characters hooked me from the first chapter. I'm officially a fan. ( )

Full review in my wrap up vlog. https://youtu.be/6_EFasi4gAE ( )

Detracted a full star for the whole nonsensical Joseph plot line. Hopefully he dies early in book 2, I’m not even interested in a redemption arc. ( )

I received a copy of this book free from the publisher via Netgalley.com in exchange for honest review.

Please see my full review at www.coffeeandtrainspotting.wordpress.com ( )

4.5 Stars.

The beginning was a little slow, and it took me a while to get through overall.. But the twists and turns were always surprising to me. A solid read. I'm excited to see where this series is headed. ( )

I grabbed this book with some scepticism, expecting it to be just an average read, but I actually enjoyed it a lot. It has a good pace, nice amount of intrigue and scheming and interesting story line. However, the characters could be a little bit more developed and if the story was delivered only by the three queens, not giving a separate point of view to so many people, it would be better, I think. So many characters tell the story, that they can't be properly developed. Also, at the end of the book, I had the feeling that the balance shifted little too much towards one of the queens, letting the other two at the sidebar, but all together, I'm actually looking forward to read the sequel more than I ever expected. ( )

I grabbed this book with some scepticism, expecting it to be just an average read, but I actually enjoyed it a lot. It has a good pace, nice amount of intrigue and scheming and interesting story line. However, the characters could be a little bit more developed and if the story was delivered only by the three queens, not giving a separate point of view to so many people, it would be better, I think. So many characters tell the story, that they can't be properly developed. Also, at the end of the book, I had the feeling that the balance shifted little too much towards one of the queens, letting the other two at the sidebar, but all together, I'm actually looking forward to read the sequel more than I ever expected. ( )