Reviews with content warning for Violence - Queens of Fennbirn

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Queens of Fennbirn by Kendare Blake

6 reviews

queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

4 ⭐ CW: violence, death, blood, child abuse mention

Queens of Fennbirn by Kendare Blake is a companion prequel novella from the Three Dark Crowns series containing two short stories: The Young Queens and The Oracle Queen. Possible spoilers for the series ahead.

The first story, The Young Queens follows Mirabella, Arsinoe, and Katherine before the time of Three Dark Crowns. We see them as children at the Black Cottage and with their foster families. We get to see why Queen Camille made the decision to hide Arsinoe and Katherine's true gifts. We also get to see more of Jules and how she grew and claimed Camden, her familiar. Although this was a nice little bit of extra, I don't think this prequel adds any value or anything new to the existing series.

The second story, The Oracle Queen, was much more interesting, and makes me wish we got all the stories of the previous queens. We follow Queen Elsabet, the last Oracle Queen. In the series we hear about how she had visions of treachery and sentenced three whole houses to death without evidence, and was locked away in a tower for the rest of her reign because of it. We finally get to see what actually happened. This story was full of political machinations and treachery, but the kind the queen was accused of. It was a very sad story. We also see that the Poisoner Arrons have always been ruthless, political monsters.

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zaesbookshelf's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

4.5

(Disclaimer: do not read this book before reading books 1 & 2 of the series or a massive plot twist will be ruined.)

The Young Queens: overall, nice background information for the queens. Simply a nice filler book to understand them a little better. 3.5/5

The Oracle Queen: this I wish was longer! I would read a full length book about Queen Elsabet’s life and reign. Full of all the twists, darkness, and political intrigue I’ve come to expect from Kendare Blake. 5/5

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rinku's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

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

3.0

Queens of Fennbirn is the novella collection to the Three Dark Crown series. It was bit silly of me to read those novellas long after I finished the series, but it was still fun to return to this universe.

The Young Queens

This novella follows the three queens as children when they were still together and how they have to get separated. I wasn’t sure about the children POV because they often annoy me but here, it was okay. It was so interesting to see how the queens learned the truth and how they start to change as soon as they are away from their sisters. There were some cliché moments though, like the characters overhearing secret conversations by accident.

The Oracle Queen

What I enjoyed about this novella is that we see a different time period and that the story is again quite women centred. We have a lot of drama with Elsabet having to hide her gift and it’s so sad to see how in the future, she will only be known as the queen who went insane. The villain

Francesca

is such a good villain as well.

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pageafter_paige's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.0

Wanted to sit down and read this one today and I really liked it! It was one think to hear these stories mentioned in passing during the main story, but it’s another to go back and time to read about the islands history and the childhoods of the 3 queens.

I want to murder Francesca so bad she screwed the entire island and it’s future cause she’s petty

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katinator's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

2.75

Whatever you do, don’t read this before you read the rest of the series. This is for a couple of reasons. 1- Young Queens contains a major

the baby swap

that might ruin part of the series for you. 2- if you read the Oracle Queen and care even the slightest amount about the implications of that story you will spend the rest of the series tearing your hair out as it

the fact that the oracle queen was not, in fact, evil at all and it was all a horrible slander/propaganda campaign that resulted in the deaths of dozens of babies

is NEVER ADDRESSED!! The main characters from the series never even find out the truth! It’s crazy making!!! Honestly one of the things that kept me going with the series was waiting for this to finally come to light. I literally couldn’t believe it when I got to the end and it wasn’t. I still can’t sleep at night. I read this book half a year ago and I came back to write this because I’m still mad about this. Honestly I’d say skip this book entirely it’s not worth the headache.

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nickoliver's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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