Book 3 of the Three Dark Crowns series has us in three different locations with one central purpose driving everyone: Katherine is wrong for the throne and must be dealt with.
Mirabella and Arsinoe live with Billy, Arsinoe’s suitor, at his estate with his mother and two sisters. None of them know that his father has been killed, and they are all just waiting for him to return. His mom is pushing women on him to marry, but he’s still devoted to Arsinoe. Problem is that Arsinoe has started having strange dreams about the last great Blue Queen (a queen that is a fourth born automatically becomes a Blue Queen, and her other three sisters are killed) and is being shown how the prison mist they fought so hard to escape came to be, and why they must return to the island.
Jules has gone to Bastian City to learn to use her war gift (which when paired with her naturalist gift makes her “legion cursed”) but discovers that the warriors there plan to set her up as a replacement queen to end the triplet queen tradition and forge a new path forward for the island. She does not like this, but apparently rumors are being spread and events are being set in motion to turn the people against Katherine and towards Jules.
Katherine is trying to set up her new Black Council and begin her rule, but dead bodies of regular people that have been killed by the mist that surrounds the island keep washing up on shore, some decayed for longer than they were ever out at sea, implying that the mist isn’t just dangerous, that it might warp time as well. The people are whispering about her Undead Queen nickname, saying she has brought the curse of the mist upon them. When these whispers are added to the Legion Queen rumors spreading from Bastian City, Katherine finds herself dealing with a fair amount of unrest in Volroy as well as unrest from the multitude of dead queen spirits that reside within her own self.
This shit takes so long. I shouldn’t be 66% into book fucking three of this series wondering (1) what the fuck is going on, (2) WHY the fuck are things happening, and (3) what is the point of what is happening?
I loved the first two books, even if the second one was a little flat. This third book feels like someone put ideas on darts and threw them at the wall to see what stuck. There is no tension, no build up, and nothing has any meaningful connection to the mythology of this universe. This third book left me confused and unmoored instead of craving the conclusion. I finished it, but I won’t be reading the fourth.
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