(Spoilers included, but nothing
beyond what the jacket cover says.)
The line of
queens is ending. Katharine’s reign as Queen Crowned continues, but it isn’t
without threat, including the threat within herself. The dead queens roil
within and can make their diseased presence known in very grotesque fashion.
They want control, and they want Mirabella and her exceptional elemental gift
(she’d be a powerful vessel), who’s arrived because Katharine asked her to. Katharine
wants to be simultaneously suspicious of her and have the sisterly bond that
Mirabella and Arsinoe share. Mirabella does not seem to have nefarious plans
where Katharine is concerned; she isn’t trying to usurp the throne, so why is
she there? Is it really because she’s just being a good older sister?
(Mirabella is the oldest of the triplets. Katharine is the youngest.)
Arsinoe can’t believe that Mirabella
would leave the rebellion to side with Katharine, although everyone else tends
to believe the worst of Mirabella. But Arsinoe’s got her work cut out for her.
Jules’s legion curse is unbound, and Arsinoe must find a cure. The rebellion
doesn’t know what’s all going on with Jules, but they are losing focus and
people are leaving without the presence of their Legion Queen. Will Arsinoe
find a cure? Can the Legion Queen be bound? Or will the rebellion unravel and
the Undead Queen Crowned reign without contest, remaining unable to defeat the
Mist that swallows who it wants and litters the ground with body parts?
“Five Dark Fates” is a YA fantasy
novel that’s a little bit horror and a lot of bit darkness and civil war in
this series-ending novel of the Three
Dark Crowns series. While not a massively thick tome, it is a massively
epic story. The line of queens is going to end somehow, and it is going to be
graphically violent, bloody and dark. Torture, madness, power-hungry dead and
killing mist are never far behind. This story and the entire series isn’t about
power and violence without depth; it is a complex quartet featuring complicated
characters, at least a couple of which I’ve both hated and sympathized with at
varying points. Despite their often violent actions, these are characters that
do love, twisted and broken as they usually are in Fennbirn’s matriarchal
society. There is great depth, and a blockbuster-worthy battle is inevitable.
What there isn’t is a happy ending, though the series ended where it needed to.
Book One: Three Dark Crowns (no
post)
Book Two: One Dark Throne
Book Three: Two Dark Reigns
Companion Novel: Queens of Fennbirn
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