Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, 4)
In the final book in the #1 New York Times bestselling Three Dark Crowns series, an all-out war is brewing—one that will pit sister against sister and dead against undead.
After the grim confrontation with Queen Katharine, the rebellion lies in tatters. Jules’s legion curse has been unbound, and it is up to Arsinoe to find a cure, even as the responsibility of stopping the ravaging mist lies heavy on her shoulders, and her shoulders alone. Mirabella has disappeared.
Katharine’s reign remains intact—for now. When Mirabella arrives, seemingly under a banner of truce, Katharine begins to yearn for the closeness that Mirabella and Arsinoe share. But as the two circle each other, the dead queens hiss caution—Mirabella is not to be trusted.
In this conclusion to the Three Dark Crowns series, three sisters will rise to fight as the secrets of Fennbirn’s history are laid bare. Allegiances will shift. Bonds will be tested. But the fate of the island lies in the hands of its queens. It always has.
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Community Reviews
This idea that the island/government/whatever had strayed too far from the original Queen's laid out plan seemed undefined. There was no substance behind this plot piece, which is THE plot piece for the entire series really and that made it that much worse to me that it's never explained. Feels like a cop-out.
How on earth was Katharine alive after the dead queens left her? She fell down a fucking canyon and it kept being stated that they were the only thing keeping her alive. Yet she was perfectly fine after Arsinoe performs the low magic purge on her (which was WAY too easy, btw). I think it would have made for a far more compelling story had Arsinoe gone to purge Katherine and save her, only to be her demise. Though, I suppose that feels a little too like the original concept of killing each other for the crown, but it would have been far more interesting to read that Roe's re-animated corpse coming for them and Katherine sacrificing herself for Arsinoe in the least believable, least interesting way possible.
Jules had so much opportunity for growth in this story, so much opportunity to become a major character, which was really how she was being set up what with all the 'Legion Queen' plot, but it was squandered. I imagine this is partly so that Jules never becomes another queen, as the intention is moreso to overthrow the current government and start anew, but that just makes Jules a device used by the rebellion who doesn't really seem to care either way about winning or losing. She lost what personality she had from the previous books when she could have made a much bigger impact on the story had she been given more depth. To add to it, the constant reminder from Jules that she's just Arsinoe's protector seem so out of place when Jules is literally fighting for Arsinoe's thrown. Make it make sense.
Emilia. Where do I begin? Besides the fact that she's a completely 1-dimensional character, her love for Jules is so forced, fake, and such a plot device that it's not even funny. She genuinely adds nothing to the story and it would have been a better story had the time devoted to building Emilia into a character been put into fleshing out Jules' personality. And the tension between Emilia and Arsinoe over Jules was just ridiculous filler.
The final battle was honestly quite lackluster, which is a shame since it's the thing that had been building for almost two books. No one of real consequence was lost and I didn't really buy any of the tension. The endlessly shifting POVs really made it more difficult to build suspense and keep me interested in what was going on. The way this was done just leads me to believe that the author doesn't know how to write battle scenes, which is fine, but a real let down when the battle scene was built up by the story leading up to it.
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