Kendare Blake
3/5 stars
On the island of Fennbrin, queens are always born as triplets. These queens are endowed with magical gifts and are trained from children to use them. Only one can be made THE queen, though, and at the age of 16 they b
egin a ritual that will end with only one survivor. This second volume of a trilogy follows the three Queens during Ascension Year, as each attempts to kill the others to win the crown. The characters of the Queens develop further in this volume with distinct personalities, and some of the minor characters are also well-drawn. They are all three engaging in their way, and the reader will continue to be interested in their futures. Blake writes engagingly, and moves easily from one character to the next, but overall this book is not as thrilling as it's prequel-- mainly because One Dark Throne is not as believable as Three Dark Crowns was. It also moved slower and seemed longer than it needed to be. The cliff-hanger, unlike in the first book, came as no surprise, and it's fairly easy to guess where the plot is going from here--again, unlike in Three Dark Crowns. This is not necessarily a disappointing book, but it is certainly not as strong as the first.
