Reviews tagging Murder

Three Dark Crowns, by Kendare Blake

14 reviews

paperbackbookies's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was a quick read! I enjoyed it more then I originally thought I would, but I did find some things very predictable. 

The queens are introduced by their flaws. Right off the bat, every queen has something weighing them down. 

Spoiler

 
Arisone being a poisoner all along, Maribella thinking with her heart, and Katherine being looked at as someone weak. I love them but I also love to hate them. I cant wait to see how they handle their rage in book 2 !!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Gore

Moderate: Sexual content

catherinedsharp's review against another edition

This just wasn’t the book for me. I bought it years ago as a teenager and haven’t read it. The blurb is misleading in my opinion of what the text is, and there is very brutal treatment of characters done ‘out of love’ which just does not agree with me. 

This fantasy is an interesting premise but the cruelty it shows in comparison to the YA style of writing, just didn’t agree with me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Confinement, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Injury/injury detail, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Emotional abuse

em_davies7019's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Blood, Infidelity, Animal death, Murder, and Injury/injury detail

Moderate: Vomit, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, and Gore

Minor: Sexual content and Confinement

words_and_dreams's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Dark fantasy YA

Premise in a nut shell is that each generation a set of triplets are born and one must kill her sisters to rule and become the Queen. Each is supposed to develop a different power and live in that area. There are elementalists, poisoners, naturalists, warriors etc. 

There were definitely elements that I liked including the magic systems and the world building. It had a darker atmospheric feel to it, I mean sisters are trying to kill each other. Lol.

I was annoyed that the girls didn't club together to otherthrow the archaic systems holding them back. Although this is only the first book of a series so maybe that does happen down the line. 

Also Josh was the literal worst.  Delirious, worst excuse ever. Eurgh.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Murder

Minor: Sexual content

rosenau's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Gore, Murder, Animal death, and Death

Moderate: Blood, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Injury/injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Violence, Gaslighting, Death, Abandonment, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Vomit

martereadsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Blood, Gore, Murder, Physical abuse, Injury/injury detail, Emotional abuse, Death, and Body shaming

emily_mh's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

A sentence that sums up how I feel about this book is: I'm glad I didn't buy it, but I am interested in what happens next. The best part about the book was its premise of three queens vying for the throne, and there was some good world-building surrounding this. Everything else was a bit meh. I didn't like the omniscient narration style, or that it was done in present tense. I think it was the reason behind the poor characterisation of literally every character (but ESPECIALLY Katharine's. Her POVs were... so bland). There was just no internal world for any of them. I was expecting big reactions from the sisters meeting for the first time in ten years, but it was literally "oh there's my sister on her platform" or "oh my sister's talking to me in this forest" which was incredibly disappointing. Flat characters also meant that all the romances fell flat. It was very insta-love. And on top of the characters being meh, the plot had no direction beyond the fact that Beltane was gonna happen in a couple of months. Literally nothing of consequence happened between the beginning and that point. And you'd expect with the whole book leading up to the Quickening, that event would have some impact. But it was over in 10 pages tops. On the whole I was just expecting a lot more from this book. What partially saved it was the unique world-building and the fact that I wasn't dreading picking it back up when I put it down - it was actually somewhat enjoyable and definitely easy to read. That's enough to make me pick up the sequel!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Violence, Death, Child death, Gore, Body horror, Murder, Injury/injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Animal death, and Vomit

Minor: Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Ableism, Excrement, Confinement, Sexual content, and Eating disorder

barry_benson's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Death, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Injury/injury detail, Medical content, and Torture

Minor: Vomit

bubothereader's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I read this during most of my honeymoon—admittedly, a weird choice. 

I really liked this first book—it’s atmospheric, has interesting characters, and a magical system that I’d love to see on film. I did find it a tad predictable; however, I still enjoyed it immensely. Definitely one of my best 2021 reads. I plan on picking up the rest of the series at some point, As I’m very interested in how everything will go.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Injury/injury detail, Murder, Self harm, and Violence

claragweny's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

An interesting, though poorly described, world and a very compelling ending. I'll probably continue reading the series but I hope that Blake builds the world around them some more in the other books. 

I can't really recommend reading this without going through all the content warnings. It is very triggering in many, many ways.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Injury/injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Abandonment, Animal death, Child death, Infidelity, War, and Sexual content