Blurb:
The tides are turning once again… But which sister will be the last one standing?
Mirabella’s victory seemed assured, but suddenly she faces attacks like never before.
Katharine, once known as the weakest, is now rumoured to be the most lethal.
Arsinoe is keeping a secret that could be both her undoing and her best chance at victory…
Time is running out, and each sister will stop at nothing to win the throne.
Rating: 4/5 stars
Side Notes:
- Genres: Fantasy Fiction
- Highly recommend for 12 years and above
- Book 2 in the Three Dark Crowns Series
Book Quotes:
- “Does she know that you love her?” Billy raises his eyebrows. “Why would she when I didn’t? It wasn’t like I read in books. A thunderclap.Eyes meeting. Tortured glances. With Arsinoe it was more like . . . having cold water poured down your back and learning to enjoy it.” “And does she love you?” “I don’t know. I think she might.” He smiles. “I hope she does.”
- “I’ll be back soon. But . . . just in case I die, I want you to remember that you could have kissed me that day in the meadow.”
- “This is how it will be,” Billy says, his voice low. “I will taste for you, and I will smile. I will appease my father.” He feeds her another bite of sweet apples. “And I will be back with my Arsinoe before she can even miss me.”
- “No matter how far I go, I’m still your person. We stand together now.”
- “Perhaps that is how all men love. More with their eyes than with their hearts.”
- “But everyone knows that the Breccia Domain is more than an empty hole in the earth. Who knows what happened to the queens who were thrown down into the dark? Into the heart of the island, where the Goddess’s eye is always open. Who knows how she kept those queens or what she turned them into”
- “And because . . . you have always been the most important person to me. Everybody has that, I think. And for me, it will always be you.”
- “You cannot kill what is already dead.”
- “Mirabella is still upright amid everything, and Arsinoe smiles. She does not know how anyone ever expected that she or Katharine could stand against that.”
- “From now on, I will protect you, Kat, whatever happens.”
- “She is not clever . . . She is cruel.”
- “What talent you have for making a compliment sound like a threat.”
- “Or perhaps there were more sides to a woman than he had ever understood.”
- “Do you know what they do with the dead queens, Sister? […] They throw them in the Breccia for the island to eat. And may I tell you a secret? […] They are tired of it.”
- “Do not be ridiculous, boy. You cannot kill what is already dead.”
- “I have been eating poison since I was a child. Now I am practically made of it.”
- “You could be the one. But up close, you are such a disappointment. Your eyes are wary as a kicked dog’s, when you and I both know you have never been kicked in your life. Not like me, who has been kicked down with poisons and popped blisters and made to vomit until I weep. That is why I am going to win,”
- “In his mind, she was a nurture, kind and comforting, a woman who would give up her freedom for the love of a child even when the child was not hers. But the woman he met was hard and decisive. Perhaps the Black Cottage had changed her. Or perhaps there were more sides to a woman than he had ever understood.”
- “But she and her knives will have such a lovely time here.”
- “a lack of hatred does not change anything.”
- “But that is not fair!” “This was never going to be fair.”
- “We do our best, knowing that there is no choice and that she will have her way, in the end.”
- “Not a bribe. Never a bribe. None of us has won here . . . If we do not come together, we will lose what is left.”
- “I failed you once. I betrayed you once. But I will not again. From now on, I will protect you . . . whatever happens.”
- “I keep thinking of what we should have done,” he says. “What we could have done differently. But maybe there was nothing.” He snorts. “Sometimes you just lose. After all, someone has to.”