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I’m enjoying this series more as it goes on, I think.

I feel as if every novel adds a twist or two, solves a riddle or two, and amps up the intensity.

I’d love to see Blake’s notes on the history of the queens. I know the losing queens are basically erased from history, but I get the feeling Blake has done extensive imagining and somewhere has a great bundle of information on this world and its history. Names, gifts, lineage, etc.

So this is the third book in what was originally supposed to be a duology, and there’s a fourth book after this that I’m also really looking forward to. In this book, the queens re-emerge, Katharine victorious, and try to solve the mystery of the killer mist that normally protects the island suddenly turning against them and leaving dead people in its wake.

So although I have worked really hard to suspend my disbelief in this series and its entire premise of murdering queens – my issue stems from the fact that until a queen is crowned, the government is basically run by the foster family of the queen’s mother, who leaves the island as soon as she gives birth – I am still a little confused with the concept of the Blue Queen, who takes a larger role in this novel in the form of flashback visions/dreams. A Blue Queen is a fourth born queen, immediately crowned because her older sisters are put to death, and any of them can still have any gift. I think it’s really unfair that whoever just happens to be born last in a set of quadruplets falls into ruling because her sisters are murdered. What if the fourth born queen was a seer? Seer queens are also murdered, to save them from going insane (as depicted in one of the novellas – really worth reading if you enjoy this series). That part doesn’t make sense to me. I know it’s the will of the Goddess, but still. There’s room for fatal error there.

Anyway! Apart from that very small issue, I also enjoyed watching Pietyr come to some kind of realisation. Pietyr always bothered me. I can never quite understand his motivations. I also have a newfound respect for Jules’ mother Madrigal, who is such a wealth of knowledge of low magic – which seems to be a bit of a cop out, in that low magic can kind of do anything if you have the right ingredients and know what you’re doing. And all the murder! There’s lots of stabby-stabby murder in this book and it’s glorious.

I really enjoy watching these girls come into their power and figure out how they’re going to survive in a world that expects them to murder each other. I love seeing them defy tradition and really fuck some things up. I love watching Mirabella go from nearly a White-Handed Queen (one who is so expected to become queen that the temple murders her sisters for her) to developing a deep bond and connection to Arsinoe. I love watching Arsinoe figure out who she is and the lie that has been told her whole life (and Braddock, I love Braddock – and Billy too, I guess, he’s pretty realistic). And sweet, sweet Katharine, our innocent, tortured damsel turned blood-thirsty Queen Crowned.

That ending. It got me. It really did.

I really want to see how these sisters end this story in the next book.

I received a copy of this book from Pan MacMillan in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Book: Read a book about light, miracles, characters who are Jewish or books set in Israel.  OR: Hanukkah commemorates the re-dedication of the second temple in the second century; read the second book in a series or a book with the word “second” or “two” in the title.

I'm using Two Dark Reigns to claim this door. It's not the second book in the series, but it does have the word "two" in the title.

In every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born—three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions.

But becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins.

The last queen standing gets the crown.

I started this book because I heard so many great things about it I wasn’t sure I would really like it. Just because the world seemed so massive, which it is. But after a few chapters I really enjoyed it and started to get the hang of it.   As mentioned the world is huge, we have one big world but also three separate kind of kingdoms all with their own should be queen and her, I guess could be her court and or friends.

We get quite a few POVs in the book, it was a bit confusing in the beginning but once you are familiar with the Queens and her clan it is super easy to follow.

I tried to figure out which one of the three I like most, but really I couldn’t really choose… at least not yet, they all have different things I liked or disliked. The same goes with their powers. It is clear early on that Mirabella is the one everyone favorites and thinks will be their next queen but things of course don’t go that way and we get thrown for a loop a few times.  The book is pretty fast paced and we get plenty of action as well. We also get some romance but not overly so which I enjoyed that it didn’t take away from anything, but just enough and some of it was actually pretty important in the overall story arc.

The ending, was wild it was nonstop actions and surprises until it finally leaves us with a cliffhanger you don’t want to miss.

Overall I’m glad I read this book and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would in the beginning and I’m looking very much forward to book two in the series. I rate it 4 ★

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After Cas's father died, killed by one of the ghosts he hunted, Cas inherited his athame and began following in his footsteps. Although his mother knows what he does and does her best to help him with any protective magic she has at her disposal, Cas has never told her his ultimate goal: he wants to become skilled enough to find and kill his father's murderer.

The ghost known as Anna Dressed in Blood will be his final one before confronting the ghost that killed his father. She's powerful - if Cas can beat her, he should be able to handle anything. But Anna isn't like other ghosts Cas has gone up against, and there are things going on in Cas's new city that he is unprepared for.

I was flying through this book when I suddenly hit a reading slump. Nothing except audiobooks could even vaguely hold my attention, and I went several weeks before diving back into this. It's a shame, because it badly interrupted the story's flow. It would have been best if I could have read this in a few big chunks over the course of a week.

Although the book is written in first-person present tense, which generally irks me, I barely noticed it here. It helped that I liked Cas's "voice." He reminded me a bit of the Winchester brothers in the show Supernatural, and the dry humor fit as well. If you're a fan of that show, I'd definitely recommend giving this book a shot.

Cas was a loner by choice who, upon moving to Anna's town, soon found himself reluctantly saddled with a couple people he eventually came to consider friends: a slightly telepathic witch named Thomas and Carmel, one of the popular girls. I liked that they both turned out to be useful in the big climactic battle, in ways that made sense. I'm hoping that Carmel gets more of a chance to shine in the next book. I liked that she didn't fit into the usual "popular girl = awful person" stereotype, although I disliked the potential romance between Thomas and Carmel.

Carmel was a little interested in Cas, but Cas only had eyes for Anna. Since he was out of the picture, Thomas, who had a huge crush on Carmel, seemed like a possibility, except she didn't show the slightest bit of interest in him. There was a line in the book that said something to the effect that Carmel could either end up with Thomas or be a shallow stereotypical popular girl and go back to dating jocks. It bugged me, because not wanting to date Thomas wouldn't be shallow of her - it'd just mean that she wasn't interested in him that way. It's possible to be both a decent person and not be interested in dating the main character's unpopular friend.

I liked Anna and the budding romance between her and Cas, although I dreaded the other characters' very valid reactions once Cas's feelings became more obvious. Even if she hadn't killed someone in front of them, romance between a ghost and a ghost hunter didn't seem like a good idea. But Anna was a pretty awesome ghost, and I liked that Cas admired her strength rather than felt intimidated by it. I did snort a bit at Anna's collection of YA stereotypes. Not only was she the most powerful and unusual ghost Cas had ever met, she also had violet eyes.

Cas had a few moments of stupidity - proving the existence of ghosts and his ghost-hunting prowess by taking untrained newbies on a hunt for a ghost he hadn't even researched, for example - but for the most part he was an enjoyable character. I look forward to eventually reading Girl of Nightmares.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)