Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake – ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Recommended: sure!
For fans of historical / royal / magical YA fantasy, with a few actually unexpected moments (without them being unexpected from being completely stupid)

Summary from Goodreads:
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.

Thoughts:
Its a pretty quick and easy read. It’s nothing that’s blowing me away, but I definitely enjoyed reading it and found that I couldn’t always anticipate what would 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.