Hello Readers, welcome back to my blog.

This is the first book in the series. This is one of those books that I can honestly say “instagram made me read it”. I have seen some amazing pictures of this book and when I read the synopsis, it sounded like something I wouldn’t hate so I took the plunge.

SUMMARY

In every generation on the Island of Fennbirn a set of triplets is born: Three Queens, all equal heirs to the Crown, all possessed of a coveted magic.

Mirabella, a fierce elemental, can spark hungry flames with the click of her finger.

Katharine, a poisoner, is known to be resistant to the deadliest of snake bites.

Arsinoe, a naturalist, is rumoured to have the ability to bloom the reddest of roses.

But becoming the Queen Crowned is not just a matter of royal birth. These three sisters must fight to the death for the throne, and on the night they turn sixteen the battle begins. Only one queen can inherit the crown.

I love books that have maps so that when places are mentioned you can refer to the map, it makes things easy for your imagination especially when you are directionally challenged. The poem at the beginning of the book was pleasantly unexpected and turned out to be my favourite quote of the book.

Things start slow as the world building develops gradually and each chapter moves from one queen to another, introducing us to them and the people around them. The three queens were separated at age six and while they were upset about it and cried initially we see that they have gotten used to the fact that they will kill each other ten years later. Only one of the queens has seen her power and it grows ach day, she is the favourite to win the throne – Mirabella the elemental. Katherine has not come into her power but she is a poisoner there has been three poisoner queens before her, so she is expected to try her best by any means to hold on to that. Which means she is poisoned constantly to build her resistance and encourage her power to bloom. Arsinoe is a naturalist that hasn’t gotten her familiar or her power and is counted as dead by most because she is not seen as a contender for the throne at all with no powers or strong family to back her.

The underlining sentiment throughout the story in the first 100 pages is the three queen sisters will kill each other for the right to the throne and no one see this as strange or cruel at all because it is their tradition. The saddest is that there are other gifts like the war gift or the gift of sight but queens born with the gift of sight are immediately downed because the sight can make them paranoid and mad.

My favourite quote

Three Dark Queens

are born in a glen,

sweet little triplets

will never be friends.

Three Dark Sisters

all fair to be seen,

two to devour and

one to be queen

I love the rhymes of the poem although it is very sad and dark. I feel it sums up the sentiments of the story. The mainland people call the sisters witches rather than queen because in the mainland they do not have gifts like people in Fennbirn and there is a foggy sea dividing them.

The story telling and world building is very slow, it takes a while for the reader to find the rhythm of the story but once founds it is very easy to flow with the story and you wouldn’t want to put the book down. The story is very dark but you also see softer emotions like love and friendship in the midst of the darkness that surrounds the characters.

The characters really grow throughout the story and at the end they are no longer who they were at the beginning. Like I said previously it takes some time to become invested in the characters but it gets easier as the plot progresses. The last 20 pages took a dark turn and I couldn’t put the book down. The rating started low but increased as the tension and drama increased in the plot. If you like to be slowly pulled into a story, this book does just that. I can’t wait to read the rest of the book in this series.

If you like this review and are interested in reading this book, you can purchase this book at Book depository with this link – https://tidd.ly/3ueFi1n

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