#Review - Five ​Dark Fates by Kendare Blake #YA #Fantasy

Series: Three Dark Crowns # 4
Format: Hardcover, 464 pages
Release Date: September 3, 2019
Publisher: HarperTeen
Source: Library
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy / Epic

In the final book in the New York Times bestselling Three Dark Crowns series, an all-out war is brewing—one that will pit sister against sister, dead against undead, and the betrayed against their betrayers.

Picking up the pieces after the grim confrontation with Queen Katharine, Mirabella and Arsinoe must figure out what’s next. Their answer to Katharine’s evil reign was in Jules, their warrior, but now that her mind has been ravaged by uncontrollable fits of madness, there’s no telling what might happen with the rebellion.

Then Mirabella goes missing and, though it pains Arsinoe to admit, all signs point to an unthinkable betrayal. But there are more players in this war than she realizes. The power struggle will come to an end indeed, but at what price?

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.

Five Dark Fates is the Fourth and final installment in author Kendare Blake's Three Dark Crowns series. This story continues where Two Dark Reigns left off. The story alternatives third person POV's between sisters Arsinoe, the naturalist queen who really should have been placed with the poisoners, Mirabella, the most powerful elemental queen in a long while, and Queen Katharine, the one who defeated her sisters, and now carries the Dead Queens of the past within her. 

You could add Jules as a semi-main character since she was born a Guardian, a Naturalist, and Warrior born cursed which has led us to this point in the series. Plus, with her abilities, she could be one of the most powerful characters in this series. The sides have been chosen. Arsinoe chose to stay with Jules, the Legion Queen of Sunpool, her best friend since childhood. Mirabella chose to go to Katharine hoping that she could stop her sisters from killing one another. Mira refuses to see the bad in Katharine, and has hopes that she can do something to prevent her sisters from killing each other. 

But, there are other problems like the mist that seems to have a mind of its own, and a rebellion that is rushing forward towards an unknown conclusion. I think Mira's choice was the right one. She's the oldest, and therefore she knows that when all is said and done, she has to try to keep her sisters alive, even though history and the Island of Fennbirn expects only one to live. Kat is as morally complex as a character can be. Labeling her as a villain completely erases the fact that Kat wanted and was trying to be a good queen; she was a result of the life-altering decisions made by others around her, including if you remember, Pietyr. 

It's probably unfair of me to say this, but Arsinoe was probably the weakest character. Her only saving grace is that she doesn't just abandon her best friend, and allows Billy to make his own choices in the end. Plus, she's tied to a freaking bear named Braddock. While I don't have an issue with killing off characters who seemingly have wasted readers times, or have clearly bitten off more than they can chew, I was really not a fan of who survives and who dies. Especially when one of the characters was one of my favorites and I believed she would be indestructible. This characters death was almost an after thought. 

The author looked around and said, whoa, I have so many characters someone must die! In the end, the sisters are really guided by fate, and the Dead Queens who push and push until Katharine is left without anyway out of her fate. In the end, it is characters like Pietyr, Billy, Bree, and Elizabeth who are forced into some interesting choices. In the end, this wasn't all that bad of an ending to a series.

 

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