Friday Friyay: 'Three Dark Crowns' by Kendare Blake

 Happy Friday! For once I am happy to report that I got a whole mountain of reading done during my days off! It was truly a never-ending reading-fest. And then I got back to work and found exactly zero time to write any reviews. So I'm hoping to catch up on that during the weekend, although, now that I've caught the reading-fever once again, I also have a list of books I want to read. One of the books from the TBR I've finally decided to try and sit down with is Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake. Every since it came out in 2016, I've been dying to read it. So here we finally go!

When kingdom come, there will be one.

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. 

Book Beginnings is at home on Rose City Reader, hosted by Gilion Dumas, and Friday 56 at Freda's Voice, hosted by Freda. Freda is taking a break at the moment, but Anne over at My Head is Full of Books is thankfully keeping the spirit going! I'll also be joining the Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Billy over at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. 

BB:

'A young queen stands barefoot on a wooden block with her arms outstretched. She has only her scant underclothes and the long, black hair that hangs down her back to fend off the drafts. Every once of strength in her slight frame is needed to keep her chin high and her shoulders square.' 1%

Love the imagery of this. It immediately brings Anne Boleyn to mind for me, which is probably on purpose, so now I'm all set for tragic queens, death, and betrayal. I do know this book switches POV between the sisters quite a bit and I'm not always super good with that, as I like to find my character and stick with them, but we'll see how it goes.

F56: 

'The Arrons are entrenched at Greavesdrake. And it is more than their poisons and their morbid artwork on the walls - still lifes of butchered meat and flowers, and black snakes curled around nudes. They have seeped into the manor itself. Now every inch of wood and shadow is also a part of them.' 56%

I just loved the descriptiveness of this, of how this family has seeped into its house? I don't think I'd be a big fan of the still lifes of meat, but I am oddly intrigued by the nudes and black snakes. Don't know what that says about me, except that I have a taste for the Gothic.

BBH: 

This week's question was submitted by Elizabeth from Silver's Reviews:

How do you organize your bookshelves?

Excellent question, to which I have a disappointing and slightly hypocritical answer. See, at the university where I currently work, they have organised the university library in such a way that it's not organised by topic or field, but rather by 'Most Recent'. And I hate it. I want to be able to browse my university shelves and find related material surrounding the book I came for. And now I can't. The thing that makes me a hypocrite is that I mostly do this at home as well. 

When I get a new book, I add it to the pile, which is on a shelf. Once I've read it, I might squeeze it in next to books that it reminded me of, but there is no real system in place. I have friends whose bookshelves are organized by title, or author, or actively by genre, or even by colour of the spine. My system is entirely vibes-based.

That's it for me this week! What are you reading? And how do your shelves look?