Tag: DarkFantasy

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Two Dark Reigns by Kendare Blake

The crown of Fennbirn cannot be stolen. It must be won.

Synopsis:

The battle has been fought, blood has been spilled, and a queen has been crowned, but not all are happy with outcome.

Katherine, the poisoner queen, has been crowned and is trying to ignore the whispers that call her illegitimate, undead, cursed.

Mirabella and Arsinoe, have escaped the island of Fennnbirn, but how long before the island calls them back?

Jules is returning to Fennbirn and has become the unlikely figurehead of a revolution threatening to topple Katherine’s already unsteady rule.

But what good is a revolution if something is wrong with the island itself?

My thoughts…

First of all, I am well aware this is the third book in the Three Dark Crowns series and I don’t have the previous book reviews on here. Quite a simple answer to that really. I read them both before I had Goodreads so I don’t even have one of those PERFECT reviews for you. My ratings for them are available on Goodreads though, I wish I could remember them now and maybe it would take two minutes to look but we will not comment on my lazy behaviour.

Anyway I digress, it’s been a while since I’ve read this series so jumping straight into book three I was slightly apprehensive as to whether I would actually remember the plot and so on. However, getting stuck into this it all (most) came back to me and wasn’t hard to follow at all (maybe a tad).

My favourite character throughout this series has been Mirabella and to be honest I didn’t get enough of her in this book, there wasn’t very many chapters that were focused on her and the ones that were she wasn’t doing a great deal. The big reveal towards the end of the book however, was about Mirabella and I was not here for it. This is me just being bitter but WHY? Why does it have to be my favourite character that is destined to DIE like no thanks. Not only am I feeling bitter but I’m also confused. Hopefully this whole creating and destroying the mist will be explained more in the final book because I just don’t get it. Queen Illian died and it was created and Mirabella has to die for it to be destroyed? Like WHY? Is it something to do with the elementals, Daphne said they were both elementals but WHY. A tad confused, a tad frustrated but we will continue on anyway.

Katherine is such an interesting character. Safe to say she has changed the most. She has transformed from this timid, small, easy-manipulated girl to this slightly mental, strong individual. She definitely still shows traits of her previous self (am I phrasing that right? Probably not) though. She has been the most fascinating to read about and I can’t help but feel sorry for her. I don’t believe that she’s a bad person, I think she has been groomed for this role of queen and she’s trying to fill it but not doing a very good job. The whole dead queen business is really not helping either and the ending of this book was left quite ambiguous for her. I hope she’s not dead because I wouldn’t mind her changing side and seeing the three sisters united. Am I hoping for a fairy tale here? Maybe.

Two sisters down – one to go. Arisnoe, in my opinion is really likeable. She does what she wants, strays for the norm and looks after the people she cares about. All very likeable. However, it’s not that I was bored but between Mirabella, Katherine and Jules I really wasn’t too interested in Arsinoe. I hope that’s not the case for the next book and I don’t think it will be. I’m pretty sure in the concluding book everyone will have pretty major roles to play (I’m aware Arsinoe has a pretty big role in this book but in my opinion she was overshadowed). I also want to see more of her and Billy, more relationship development wouldn’t go amiss.

All bow down to the legion cursed queen? No thanks. I don’t dislike Jules but I don’t want her to be queen and since she’s gone bat-shit crazy that is looking more and more unlikely.

Still missing Joseph.

As far as the plot is going I’m still pretty engaged and excited but I’m hoping for a lot more action in the final book.

My rating…

Still a high rating because I’m invested in these characters and this story now and reading the ending is going to be a very bittersweet feeling. This book missed out on a star due to less Mirabella and the story was quite slow paced. My hopes for the next book are high, action, fighting, EXPLANATIONS oh and let’s pray Mirabella has not switched sides it may very well break me.

Keep reading xoxo

Alice (The Chronicles of Alice #1) by Christina Henry

This is a Goodreads so as you may have gathered from previous reviews it. Will. Be. Messy.

“That is true,” Alice said. “I could never understand you.” She would never comprehend the need to hurt those who never hurt her, the need to hate for the sake of hating. She never wanted to rule over others in fear.

I do love this creepy cover! I don’t know if you can see but I tabbed this book with pink paper tabs. Don’t judge my basicness, I have evolved.

~This review will have a none spoiler section and then a spoiler filled section further on,(there will be a warning before the spoilers) enjoy!~

Honestly, I was quite underwhelmd with this book. It’s not a bad book but it’s not particularly great either. I didn’t know what I was quite expecting going into this, I was excited to read something abit different, a dark, twisted retelling of Alice in wonderland. I enjoyed parts of the book and I appreciated the writing (although at times I did think it was pretty basic) and was delightfully disturbed at parts but overall I guess I just wasn’t hooked.

I did enjoy the concept of the story being told after Alice went ‘down the rabbit hole’. It was really interesting to see how Henry executed it. The story was dark and creepy, which I think was done pretty well, at parts I was deeply unsettled (in a good way).

The ending though… didn’t do it for me it wasn’t an OMG moment, it isn’t something that’s going to stay with me, I’m not going to be thinking about it in a couple of months, it was pretty boring. There is a second book that continues this story and I’m not going to be fighting people at the book shop to get it.

If you are thinking about reading this book it’s an average reads with some enjoyable parts.
3/5 stars because it was decent. You may love it but I just wasn’t captivated. In my opinion, this book isn’t a necessity, you won’t die if you don’t read it but it’s by no means a bad book.

Trigger warning: this book doea include things such as rape, which may upset you as a reader, if so this book isn’t for you.

~Spoilers ahead~

So, we start off seeing Alice in a hospital for the mentally ill where she is confined to all in all a crappy room. She is basically being called crazy because after escaping from the rabbit (bad bad guy by the way) she can’t remember everything that has happened to her and when your daughter comes home spouting nonsense about an evil rabbit the first thing your mum would do would be to lock you up in a mental hospital, right?

Inside this mental hospital she becomes friends with Hatcher (a murderer but a nice guy really) next door. I honestly thought Hatcher was going to turn out to be evil but he stayed good to Alice throughout the book, thank God! I couldn’t have Hatcher killing Alice on me. I found their relationship abit odd, I didnt hate it but at times I was slightly confused.


Anyway, we see the hospital getting burned down and Hatcher and Alice’s escape.


Plot twist!


It’s not just them that escape but the Jabberwocky!! Who, they now need to go and defeat. Not only that but Hatcher is a seer and so is magically linked to the Jabberwocky and can sense when it’s close which sends Hatcher abit (a lot) loopy.
Hatcher in general is just abit (a lot) loopy and when you anger him he tends to ‘see red’ and kill you, spectacular I know!

The first important stop is Chesire’s house.
I found him a very intriguing character and wished there was more actual interactions with him, I found myself wanting to read more about him.

After some strange trickery from Chesire we then see Alice and Hatcher meet up with the caterpillar and my word the caterpillar’s home was a distubing scene. Basically a brothel.


Also a moment just for the Walrus. Vile. Vile. Vile
Stealing women and eating them WHILE he rapes them, (we later find out he was eating them to uncover whether they were a magcian or not as he was trying to steal their power because he was meant to buy Alice who, PLOT TWIST is a a magician as well as the Jabberwocky).


Back to the caterpillar, their conversation was interesting, we got to find out the story of Hatcher and how he actually worked for the rabbit in exchange for protection for his wife and later his dauhter against the big bad world.
That turns sour because their daughter, Jenny, is that stunning that the rabbit has Hattie, the mum, raped and murdered and the daughter stolen away to far far away. Just the usual thing you do to pretty girls.
Alice then being the bad ass she is gives the caterpillar the knife to the throat. Fully deserved!

Next stop the walrus. I wasn’t happy with these scenes. The walrus was bigged up throughout this book to be some big, scary character and in my opinion he went down way to easily. No tension. No suspense.
I get he wasn’t the main villian so perhaps not alot went into his storyline but he was a big obstacle in the way of their ultimate goal but it seemed like Alice and Hatcher had no issue of ridding themselves of the him.
It wasn’t even that their plan was made to be unrealistcally perfect or anything, I think it was just too short. I would have liked the walrus to put up abit more of a fight.

We then finally get to encounter the rabbit, who turns out to be some frail, old man because Alice took his eye out (when she previously went down the rabbit hole), taking his magic with him due to this magical knife she used (WHICH IS WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR TO DESTROY THE JABBERWOCKY ONLY ALICE THREW IT IN THE RIVER AGESSSSS AGO).
Not much to say about the Rabbit except he was abit weird. Again they seemed to roll right through him – onto the Jabberwocky.

I was sooooooo happy when Alice faced the Jabberwocky alone, Hatcher had been referred to as her protector throughout the book so seeing her able to take on this main villian alone was so pleasing to read.
However, again this villian was portrayed as an incredibly powerfull, ultimately evil type of baddy but Alice, who couldn’t even control her powers properly turned him into a BUTTERFLY. I don’t even know what to say. Amusing? Bizzare?

The ending really was quite predictable, similar to a fairy tale ending but it did set up for the second book nicely.
The adventure to Hatcher’s daughter, which I assume will be the main plotline in the sequel.
It felt like eveything was too much of a picture perfect ending and I needed something to grab me and make me want to pick up the next one and although this book had some good aspects unfortunately I just didn’t have that something that I needed.

A decent read but nothing spectacular.

I’m interested to see how other people found this book and if you picked the second book up what are your thoughts?A dencent book with some enjoyable disturbing scenes, a good read but not really a “go get it now” type of read.

Keep reading xoxo