How Kendare Blake’s Three Dark Crowns Hooked Me [Wyrd & Wonder Review]

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. 

Three Dark Crowns, GoodReads

Preamble 💬

I added Three Dark Crowns to my ‘to-read-ya-maybe’ shelf back in the summer of 2017. Mostly I did this because I loved the cover. And the premise was pretty badass. But I’m picky about fantasy and about young adult fantasy especially, so I didn’t expect I would actually read the book one day.

Then COVID-19 started looming. I struggled to find a book that could hold my interest. When I saw Three Dark Crowns on the shelves at work, after we closed to the public, I thought, “Maybe this is the kind of story I need right now…” I checked it out and read it over two days. Then came the announcement that we wouldn’t be going back to work next week. Happily, we also had The Queens of Fennbirn and Five Dark Fates on the shelf, so I grabbed those.

The wait for my library’s digital copy of One Dark Throne (#2) wasn’t bad, but the wait for Two Dark Reigns (#3) was painful. This series turned out to be exactly what I needed, for reasons I’ll explain below. It helped me easy back into reading, as I picked up other books while waiting for Two Dark Reigns. I also convinced my sister to read the first book. We devoured all five books together. Here’s how Three Dark Crowns grabbed my attention and didn’t let go.

Review ✍🏻

👑 Dark High Fantasy

This series is built around royal politics, ancient traditions, and magical affinities. It’s got classic high fantasy themes. It’s got political intrigue that doesn’t strive for complexity. It’s got drama and action dark enough to keep you on your toes without being too gruesome (usually…). It’s got a magic system that affects everyone in Fennbirn, not just the gifted queens. I like these elements in my fantasy, but I’m pretty particular about them. Blake hits the right tone with each of them for me.

🌫️🌳🐻 Striking Secondary World

Three Dark Crowns is a secondary world fantasy. The story takes place on the island of Fennbirn. Initially Fennbirn seems positioned to be the entire world, never mind if there’s anything else beyond it. But hints suggest a greater world with Fennbirn perhaps being an anomaly. I loved Fennbirn, with its oceans, forests, and mountains, its diverse magic and unquestioned traditions, its old world feel (hard for me to pin down, but somewhere between late medieval and 1600s?). Another distinguishing aspect of Fennbirn’s world is that its society is matriarchal in all aspects, not just in its queenly traditions.

💕Tolerable Romances

I’m not keen on romance. So acknowledging ‘tolerable romance’ is a big deal for me, haha. Each queen does find herself in some kind of romantic entanglement. I found the development of these relationships believable; there’s no instalove here. But these relationships aren’t the main focus and they don’t exist just for romance’s sake. The love interests are developed characters in their own right. They have their own motivations and influence on the plot, outside of their love for the queens.

🚰 Easily Swallowed

I can’t disregard the influence reading during a pandemic had on my enjoyment of this series. I needed a compelling and easy to read story to allow me to escape and catch my breath for a bit. Three Dark Crowns provided. I blazed through the series to find out what would happen next. It’s not the most thought provoking or memorable, but it’s entertaining.

🤔 YA But Not Exactly?

Each of the points above worked for me because they didn’t really feel like how they normally do in YA. Broadly speaking, the series didn’t feel like YA to me because it deals little with the typical challenges young adult face. I know that could probably be said about a lot of YA fantasy, especially stories featuring MCs as (future) rulers, but the behaviour and attitude and experiences of the queens meant I could easily imagine them to be 10 years older than they actually are (16). The fade to black sex scenes reminded me of the books’ target audience.

The Bottom Line 💭

I understand the mixed reviews of the first book – it is almost a prologue; it doesn’t stand on its own; you can’t draw conclusions about the characters, plot, or settings from that book alone. I had a few quibbles with the series. I doubt I will reread it, given that a significant part of the appeal was finding out what would happen next. But if the premise intrigues you and you’re down for some secondary world escapist fantasy, I highly recommend you give Three Dark Crowns a shot.

Further Reading 📰

🍂 Nerd Daily conduced an interview with author Kendare Blake shortly before the release of the final book
🍂 Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction has written spoiler-filled discussions of each book in the series
🍂 Mel @ Cotton Candy Book Witch also recently read Three Dark Crowns and wrote a letter to it
🍂 More blogger reviews include those by Shenwei @ Reading (As)(I)an (Am)erica, Annemieke @ A Dance with Books and Lili @ Utopia State of Mind
🍂 Related posts: Review of secondary world fantasy Uprooted by Naomi Novik, discussion of V.E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic trilogy

What aspects of your favourite fantasy books do you love most? Have you ever fallen in love with a fantasy when you didn’t expect to?