There are stories, of course. Tales of great queens who left the island to become great queens again on the mainland. Others tell of queens who live out the rest of their lives peacefully and quietly, with their consorts. But Arsinoe has never believed a word. In her mind, every last queen lies at the bottom of the sea, drowned by the Goddess the moment she was done with them.
—Three Dark Crowns, by Kendare Blake
Every generation on the island of Fennbirn, the reigning queen gives birth to triplet daughters and identifies their magical gifts. Shortly thereafter, the queen and her king-consort leave the island forever. The girls are raised separately by the factions that surround each gift. When the young queens turn sixteen, they meet for the first time, use their powers against each other… and the last living sister becomes the next queen, with her faction as the new council.
In this current generation, the three most common gifts are represented: there is a poisoner, a naturalist, and an elemental. But as of yet, only the elemental’s gift has manifested.
Three Dark Crowns starts slow and quiet, with the introduction of a large cast of characters, which—despite the insularity of the island and the homogeneity of its inhabitants—has a broad range of upbringings and experiences and cultural traditions. Blake drops her readers into the middle of an unfamiliar world, forcing them—and trusting in their ability—to catch up. At first, the chapters rotate focus evenly, moving from one sister to the next and then back again, laying the foundation of the queens’ childhoods and friendships and relationships with the people who have raised them. About halfway through, the pacing speeds up as the threads begin to converge—secrets don’t stay secret long, which keeps the action and the plot and the character dynamics constantly changing. Once the stage is set, the action and changes come fast, furious, and often—by the end of the book, I was turning pages so quickly that my Kindle had a hard time keeping up.
If you can get past the illogic of the basic premise—like, Wicker Man-esque themes of Sacrifice To The Land aside, wouldn’t the island be WAY STRONGER with THREE magic-wielding queens at its center, rather than one?—this book will be a real joy for anyone who likes their fantasy dark and character-driven with lots and lots of cutthroat (sometimes literally) political machinations. The only knowledge the girls have has been fed to them by the factions who have raised them—thus, they’ve been manipulated and indoctrinated and groomed practically since birth. Despite their status as young queens, they’re really just pawns of the powerful people in the background… and as that realization hits each girl, anger and desperation and a desire for change begins to set in.
Blake does a great job of not only creating three distinct sisters—Katharine, who has grown up enduring physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the poisoners; Arsinoe, who has grown up loved and in relative freedom with the naturalists, but whose gift hasn’t manifested; and Mirabella, whose elemental gift is hugely powerful, but who is cloistered and cosseted and lives without any semblance of privacy. Mirabella, as the only sister whose power has manifested—and the only one of the three with real memories of the others—is the only one who has the luxury of questioning the morality of the fast-approaching battle, of spending time thinking about the bonds of love rather than focusing on pure survival:
As different as they all are, and as different as their life experience has been, Blake ALSO draws lots of parallels between them. But the parallels are never too obviously matchy-matchy, and unless I missed one, all of the parallels I spotted were between two of the three sisters—never all three the same. For instance, we see Arsinoe and Mirabella make escape attempts, but not Katharine; we see Katharine and Arsinoe deal with the guilt and fear that comes with a lack of magical power, while Mirabella wields hers with ease; and we see Mirabella and Katharine deal with violent sadists who claim to be protectors, while Arsinoe’s protector is also her best friend and constant companion. We see the girls who try to escape punished by loved ones; we see the girls who don’t have their own magic try to wield other kinds of power; we see two of the three girls betrayed by those they hold most dear.
There’s so much more! Stratification between the different types of gift—the poisoners have been in power so long that the other factions feel unheard and disenfranchised—and stratification between innate magic and the kind of magic that anyone can learn. Prophecy and tradition, and an underhanded FALSE prophecy and tradition created in an attempt to manipulate the entire island populace. There’s romance—though at the moment, I’m of the opinion that at least two of the romantic interests should get thrown down a deep, dark well—but it’s the sort of romance that’s all messy, with fear and dread tied up with want and need, love and like, loyalty to one’s own self and loyalty to one another.
As the book neared its climax, I began to hope against hope that the girls would meet, join forces, and pull the whole corrupt system down.
Spoiler: That doesn’t happen. That doesn’t happen AT ALL.
But, based on some of the character development and some of the clues in the worldbuilding, I’m hoping that it might happen in the next installment. So now, for the first time in what feels like a really, really long time, I find myself counting the minutes until I can read the next book in a series.
In addition to running a library in rural Maine, Leila Roy blogs at Bookshelves of Doom, is currently serving on the Amelia Bloomer Project committee, is a contributor at Book Riot, hangs out on Twitter a lot—possibly too much—and watches a shocking amount of television. Her cat is a murderer.
