Jules is the strongest naturalist in sixty years. She curls up on the floor and falls unconscious.Īrsinoe, the second sister, is with her best friend Jules Milone and Jules’ familiar Camden, a mountain cat. No one will help her because of this disgrace.

She vomits the meal onto the table and falls to the floor. Katharine eats through it as quickly as possible and impresses the crowd, but she cannot escape before the effects hit. She must eat the poisoned food to demonstrate her strength. She is graciously rescued by Pietyr Renard, Natalia’s nephew, when he asks her to dance. Natalia announces Katharine to the guests. Genevieve keeps saying how Katharine is too skinny, the scars from previous poisonings will show, and her gift is not strong. The head of the family, Natalia Arron, and her sister Genevieve Arron inspect Katharine before the Gave Noir. Katharine lives with the Arron family, a prestigious family of poisoners who have raised the last three generations of poisoner queens. But she must make the best showing possible at the ball tonight. She is frail and weak after many years of ingesting poisons. Today is her sixteenth birthday and she is preparing for the Gave Noir. Katharine is a poisoner, and the youngest triplet. One of the three will kill the other two and rule their kingdom of Fennbirn Island. Queen Katharine is one of three triplets, each blessed with a different gift and trained far away from each other in their discipline. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions.īut becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. 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. Three Dark Crowns is the first book in the Three Dark Crowns series by Kendare Blake.

The dark crowns