YA Dark Fantasy • Companion Novel • Magic
Summary
I absolutely loved Queens of Fennbirn. This novella is designed to be read between books two and three of the Three Dark Crowns series, and while it isn’t essential to the main plot, it adds so much depth, clarity, and emotional resonance to the world of Fennbirn. It’s the kind of companion book that enhances everything around it: characters, history, motivations, and the eerie magic that defines the island.
The novella is split into two distinct stories: The Young Queens and The Oracle Queen, each offering a different perspective of the unique and magical world.
The Young Queens
This first story is a gift for anyone who has ever wondered what the triplet queens were like before they were separated, before the politics, training, manipulation, and bloodshed.
The Young Queens provides a rare glimpse into their earliest years, when Mirabella, Arsinoe, and Katharine lived together as children. It explores the intentions of their biological mother, Queen Camille, and the heartbreaking decisions that shaped their destinies.
We see how each girl was placed with her respective foster family, how their gifts, or lack thereof, began to manifest, and how the seeds of their future rivalries were planted long before they understood what it meant to be queens.
The Oracle Queen
The second story, The Oracle Queen, is haunting and tragic.. It takes place five hundred years before the events of the main series and follows Queen Elsabet, the last queen to possess the gift of sight.
Elsabet’s reign is fraught with tension. Her visions make her powerful, but they also make her vulnerable. Her control over her Guard is slipping, her King Consort is becoming increasingly distant, and the court whispers behind her back. She clings desperately to the few people she believes she can trust, even as betrayal creeps closer.
Final Thoughts
While Queens of Fennbirn isn’t required reading for the main series, it enriches the experience in so many ways, deepening the emotional stakes, unveiling crucial historical events of the island’s history, and the fragile political structure and mythology of the islanders.
I would strongly urge any fan of the Three Dark Crowns saga to read this novella. Even though it isn’t essential to the plot, it adds richness and nuance that make the main books even more impactful, and it’s a welcome reprieve from the scheming and bloodshed of the three murderous sisters.
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