Title: Three Young Queens
Author: Kendare Blake
Date: 9th January 2018
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books
In 2017 I read both Three Dark Crowns and One Dark Throne and they were some of my favourite reads of the year. The sequel was definitely better than the first and I’ve become invested in the story of the three Queens. It is dark, mysterious and gripping, everything I love in a book. So when I heard that the novella Three Young Queens was coming out, of course I had to get it on my Kindle. Also, the UK cover is beautiful! I love how they incorporated their magical abilities onto the mobile.
Three Young Queens tells the origin story of the sisters, Arsinoe, Katharine and Mirabella, coming into the world and how they grew up together. It also describes what actually happened when they went their separate ways and how they grew up to become the Queens we know and love.
It was so easy to sink back into this series, even if just for a short while, and I flew through the novella. I loved being able to read the thoughts of Queen Camille and know what she was like. It allows you to know more of their back story and why a certain event happened that changed the course of two of the sisters lives. Not only that, but her relationship with her king-consort Phillipe and how they planned to leave the world of Fennbirn behind once her reign came to an end.
Some of my favourite parts of the Novella was seeing the relationship between the three sisters and how close they were before they were parted in such a cruel way. I especially loved seeing the protective nature of Mirabella, something that is prominent in the second book. Even though it was a novella, I was captured by the stories of each sister and what happened to them. Of course, it was sad seeing some events such as Aunt Caragh leaving and the beginning of Katharine’s training to become a poisoner Queen.
While you don’t necessarily have to read the novella, it is a great addition to the series and with the little tid-bit of information about the Oracle Queen at the end, I am definitely looking forward to the next one. All in all, I really enjoyed it and will be giving it a full five stars.
