Of Swords and Soulmates
Is this a kissing book? Of Swords and Soulmates features two couples (and sometimes more), with varying reading preferences and experiences, as they read, listen, and sometimes watch romantasy stories and discuss plot, fantasy elements, romance, spice, theories, and more. Join us for our non-expert opinions as we discuss, argue, rave, rant, and hopefully entertain. We may just help you find your next reading obsession or at least contribute to that TBR list!
Of Swords and Soulmates
"Three Dark Crowns" - Three Queens...Three Gambits
Have you ever felt the heart-pounding anticipation of a plot twist you never saw coming, or the sting of a character's betrayal that felt all too real? Our latest episode of is a literary feast for the senses, as we unravel the complex world of Kendare Blake's Three Dark Crowns.
We touch on the news that Sarah Maas is the best-selling author (all genres) in 2024 so far with House of Flame and Shadow according to Business Insider. Also, the surprising news that Carissa Broadbent is releasing book two of the Crowns of Nyaxia series, Ashes and the Star Cursed King, on June 4. The surprising part is that each vampire house is gong to get its own duology.
This episode isn't just about reviews; it's a deep exploration of how the publishing industry is evolving, a conversation spurred by the news and Business Insider article linking the explosive growth of the romantasy genre to social media. We weave comparisons with the music industry's digital leap and celebrate the romance genre's self-publishing phenomena that's rewriting the rules.
Then, we cast an analytical eye over the charming yet sinister tapestry of Three Dark Crowns, where magic, mayhem, and monarchy collide, leaving us all with fierce opinions and starry-eyed predictions for the Queen of Fennbirn's fate. We give our spoiler-free ratings and thoughts before a deep, spoiler-filled, discussion. We debate which of the three queens we would support in the struggle for the throne.
Concluding with a heart-to-heart on the intoxicating mix of fantasy and romance within Blake's tale, we spar over the authenticity of enchanted romances versus those forged in the fires of genuine connection. The episode's cover art debate is the cherry on top, as we ponder the power of first impressions and the lure of a beautiful book jacket. We cap it off with a fierce discussion on whether the new Dune movies meet the definition of Romantasy.
Prepare to be enchanted by our insights, laughter, and maybe even find a new favorite to add to your collection.
Links from the News Segment and Show:
- Sarah Maas is the best selling author so far in 2024, social media, and the rise of romantasy in the publishing world.
- Crowns of Nyaxia vol. II, Ashes and the Star Cursed King
- Kendare Blake
- May is Asian & Pacific American Heritage Month
- Romantasy Book Convention (Orlando 2024)
Follow us:
Instagram - @ofswordsandsoulmates
Goodreads - http://www.goodreads.com/ofswordsandsoulmates
Views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the participants. The hosts make no claim to be literary experts and their opinions are exactly that opinions. All creative works discussed or reviewed are the intellectual property of the creators of said stories and is being used under the Fair Use Doctrine.
Mari:Hello and welcome to Of Swords and Soulmates, a podcast where we discuss romancy stories. I'm one of your hosts, Mari, and with me I have Kelly.
Kelly:Hey, it's Kelly, and we also have Ashley.
Ashley:Hey guys, it's Ashley. We also have Jonathan.
Jonathan:Hey, it's JP at the back of the pack.
Mari:What's good One of these days. I'm going to just throw you under the bus, jonathan, and have you be like first or second, you're not going to know what to do.
Ashley:You're not going to know what to do if you mess up the order.
Jonathan:If you think that I haven't planned for that contingency, you are mistaken. I've got it's hey, got it's.
Mari:Hey, it's JP in the mid pack. I'm the mid pack, maven, you know. Whatever I got this, I can flow with it. Okay, challenge accepted, all right.
Mari:So today we're going to be discussing three dark crowns by Kandari Blake. But before we get into that, I wanted to go over a little bit of news. We don't have a lot today, just just two main things. The first thing was I read about Sarah J Maas, sjm. She's officially become the top selling author of the year so far, not like fantasy, but just top selling author of the year. She released that third Crescent City book in January, which is the House of Flame and Shadow, which I've not read the Crescent City series. I started it and then read that apparently you were supposed to read Throne of Glass first and then I stopped it. I'm like two chapters into the first Crescent City book, and so then I read all of Throne of Glass at the beginning of the year, which was great but emotionally wrecking, and I needed some time before I jumped back into it. You needed to recover, yeah. Yeah, I needed a little time to heal before jumping back into Sarah J Maas stuff. So I've not gotten back into the Crescent City stuff, that's fair.
Ashley:You have to be able to handle that weight right. You got to have all your ducks in a row and no projects on the horizon.
Mari:No, no, I mean especially like those. There's only three. I say only three, but they are thick.
Ashley:They are thick ladies. Yes, chunky girls.
Mari:They're really pretty, though, like I went ahead and got all three because I'm like I know, I know I'm going to want to read them, so I have them the third one available in paperback, yet that's the only reason I haven't. I think so, but I'm not sure that up. Yeah, I'm not sure. I was drawn in by the pretty cover of the third one, like over and over, and I'm like, all right, I'm getting it, I'm getting all three. Then, if I'm getting this one, I'm getting getting all three.
Ashley:You know, I think the authors and stuff are starting to catch on about what a reader will do for a good trophy book, oh yeah, and how much faster we will spend money on multiple copies. They're starting to catch on. It's starting to get pretty painful for, you know, the everyday reader.
Kelly:It really is.
Ashley:To collect their trophies.
Kelly:Yeah, this is interesting that you're seeing that kind of thing where they're doing these special covers and stuff, because to me it brings back around the 90s in comic books, where the comic book companies were figured out that if they could do variant covers, then comic book collectors would go out of their way to collect all six variants of the same cover of whatever special issue and stuff like that, and that eventually came back to bite the comics industry in the butt yeah, and I mean it may with this too, but for now, all these special editions are so pretty, it's just so pretty.
Mari:Give me a, a scene on the on the edge, and then give me, like all, the gilding.
Ashley:Oh, the sprayed edges. Don't even get me going about sprayed edges, so pretty.
Kelly:Pretty.
Ashley:Well, and the rebinders too are. You know, it's a really neat hobby because Jonathan got into it quite a bit and he dived in pretty hard with that, and there are some makers out there that do really delicate and intricate work.
Mari:it's it's really cool to watch them yeah, y'all sit there and watch the little videos on instagram or whatever, and I'm just like that's a black hole. Yes, you could do that for hours, fully entertained. Maybe I should do paint, start painting some scenes on the edges of some books. Do I need another hobby?
Ashley:yes, yes, you do, yes, I need all the hobbies it's a ton of fun.
Jonathan:Once you get into it I, you start to develop different techniques and sometimes I like to be a little bit more intricate, other times I I just want something very simple. Like I think I did one for nikki for iron flame when, like after we got those autographed books from the like that whatever the webinar or whatever it was, because we only needed one but we got two. So I was like, well, let me just rebind this one for nikki, and that was. That turned out pretty cool, like I I was able to. Like I did her. Did I do her name on the front or the back in in runic? I did it on the front in ruin, which was cool, and then a simple single dragon on the back. I don't know. I have my cut. I have the materials set aside for the next few in the empyrean series, so that way they'll all match yeah, it's gotta look pretty in the bookcase they gotta match correct
Mari:yeah, maybe sometime, maybe next year or something, we'll have to maybe get into some agatar as a as a group. The other news thing, before we get too much off, is, of course we're going to talk about chris abroad, ben again, because there's just something new to me. I don't think I'd realized it, but the ashes of the star cursed king're going to talk about Crescent Broadband again. Because there's just something new to me. I don't think I'd realized it, but the Ashes of the Star-Cursed King is going to be released on June 4th, which we kind of knew that was coming. But basically the way it's going to break down why there's going to be so many books is each of the houses are going to get a duology, which is kind of cool.
Ashley:Each of the houses are gonna get a duology. Wow, that's a lot of books.
Mari:That's how we're gonna get all those books, all those books we were talking about before. We're like last episode, we're like how are they gonna be so many books? That's how it's like each, each house is gonna get duology and then my guess, if you get into the story of all of them, there's got to be some something to wrap them up then, after you release those all, to bring it together.
Kelly:So sort of like infinity war maybe maybe while we're still on the news, that business insider article that was talking about sarah mass being the author of the year so far. I just think it's interesting and worth pointing out that they go into how romanicy is becoming its own thing and kind of hint that, uh, social media has played a large role in the rise of Romanesie. However, apparently some of the publishers with their new Romanesie imprint lines have also kind of taken a little bit of caution, saying they're not sure, and it's unclear, if the influencer culture will continue to help Romanesie grow or if it's just going to kind of peter out. So I think that's interesting that the publishing industry is being very cautious about not going all in on Romanacy.
Mari:Well, didn't Sarah J Maas like part of her popularity was TikTok right.
Kelly:It says there's a correlation between the rise of TikTok use in America, along with the sales of her book, and the rise of like the little TikTok book communities. But obviously you can't prove causation off that. It's just there's correlation between the two. I'm sure they affected each other. But you know, without doing a real study you can't say there was causation.
Mari:I know there's like book talk where it's like all about books. And if you go to a lot of bookstores now especially independent ones, but even some of the big chain ones they'll have like sections of like book talk, books, whatever's hot, and book talk. It'll be a whole section where you can just go and you don't have to find the book individually. You just go to like the book talk section.
Kelly:Right, it's not any different than book stores years and years ago and I guess some of them still do where they feature prominently, as soon as you walk in the store, oprah's book pick of the month, or whatever, right? So I mean, it's just, it's the same kind of thing. I just think it's interesting the role that social media has played and that the publishing industry is obviously being a little hesitant to fully embrace it, while the bookstores, the actual marketers, have kind of embraced it wholesale. So it's an interesting dichotomy, I think it's like a giant book club.
Mari:Yeah, I mean what?
Kelly:are your thoughts? Jonathan, Ashley, Mario. What are your thoughts on BookTok, Because I don't do TikTok at all?
Jonathan:I think, as with anything business related, anytime you see like a hockey stick pattern where things surge up, you need to be preparing yourself for an equally violent market correction. So publishers are probably approaching it with caution, with the idea like, hey, it was great, we sold all these books, we got some popular authors on board, got their foot in the door, everything's going on. If they pull the rug out from underneath them and the whole thing crashes down, they don't want to be over overinvested and stuffing the shelves with books that might go stale or, quite honestly, it's. What do you do with a warehouse full of books that?
Kelly:don't sell. Do you like the video game industry and the crash in the 80s? You bury them in a landfill in Arizona. Et right, Right.
Mari:I think that something that maybe is contributing to this too is it's the big name publishers that are being hesitant about it, because my understanding I don't think none of us are professionals in this industry, but my understanding is a lot of romance authors get big independently, do independent publishing, and so I think there's a little bit of a shift in power from the big publishers having all the control to independent, like smaller, the authors honestly having more control over their own works. I think it was on Blue Sky, maybe it was on Threads. I follow Katie Roberts and she was saying how she felt so much less burned out when she was doing independent publishing. She's, you know, she's very prolific right now. She's traditionally published now, but she's also very burned out. So I wonder how much of it is this power struggle between independent publishing and traditional publishing.
Jonathan:Part of that independent publishing right now is in today's age. It's so much easier to access, yes, and you can prove yourself with an ebook faster and say hey, there's a market, we're selling ebooks here. Now we can go and print and make that transition over into print that way where, as in the past, maybe you were doing print and then later developing an ebook. So paper books still hold the lion's share of the market, like two thirds of the market right now, but ebooks are definitely advancing.
Mari:Yeah, and I know that, like some of the independent authors that I follow on social media, we're talking about how the big benefit of publishing traditionally used to be that they would do. They would push all the advertising, they would push the book for you, and nowadays, even when you're traditionally published, you're expected as an author to also have a newsletter, have a website, do social media, push your own book, and so there's less and less of a benefit of going the traditional publishing route and more and more staying independent.
Jonathan:If you can get big, if you can get your name out there, you know there's bound to be some sort of financial stability If you can connect with a publishing house. For instance, a publishing house might advance you monies in order to write the next copy. But you can kind of make them become attracted to you, as opposed to you kind of hunting them down through social media like TikTok. Tiktok democratizes the process of marketing. They kind of stripped the algorithm away and gave everybody a level playing field and was like if it trends, it trends, If it doesn't, it doesn't, and let the people vote on what they want to see and how they want to interact with that content and see how things shake out. And I don't think that publishing houses have that type of clout on TikTok. It just leads to a very interesting POV.
Mari:I agree, it's an interesting potential change in how books are being published.
Kelly:I said, we saw the same thing with the music industry before. Right, the big publishing companies in the music business pushed hard against digital music and so you ended up with things like Napster. And then eventually, as digital music became the norm and it got easier and easier to produce your own music much like writing and self-publishing a book got easier with electronic books. We have now musical artists that come out of their garage, literally come own music, much like, you know, writing and self-publishing a book got easier with electronic books. We have now musical artists that come out of their garage literally come out of their garage into the top selling. You know slots on the digital music sales. Like Billie Eilish, you know, came recorded her entire album, what in her bedroom got a platinum record. That wouldn't have happened in the 80s.
Mari:Right.
Kelly:And so I, and so I think maybe we're seeing the same exact thing happen in book publishing that we saw happen in the music industry Agreed.
Jonathan:Once you open up Pandora's box with social media and self-publishing and you prepare the pathway for the authors and lyricists, you can't stuff it back in.
Kelly:Well, every business, it seems like they become entrenched in their business model and if they can't change it, they end up, you know, becoming Kodak. And the problem is is the big conglomerate of the entire industry always pushes back. So the movie industry pushed back against VHS and home tapes and lost. You know, they pushed back against home sales of electronic media. The music industry pushed back against digital music. So every time they've tried to push back against an emerging technology, it never goes well. They always end up losing. And you'd think they would learn the lesson that it's better to just quickly embrace and adapt to something like that than rather than try and spend so much effort trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
Mari:Yeah, yeah, I think the bigger you are, the bigger the business is. The bigger you are, the harder it is to turn. The bigger you know, the harder it is to change and to pivot and to change your business model. So they do everything they can to keep the market the way it is as long as possible. It's in their best interest.
Jonathan:Right, yeah. Yeah, mario is absolutely correct. A lot of that comes down to. Once you get so large, it's not just one person at the top making a decision, that becomes a board and things have to be voted on.
Mari:All right. So enough of the news, now back into the actual book review. So once again we're going to be talking about Three Dark Crowns by Kendari Blake, and we chose this book for two reasons. First of all, because it's another author that's going to be at the Fabled Fantasy Romanacy book event in October in Orlando, and also because May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and the author, kendari Blake, is Korean American. So I thought we'd pick her All right. So I'm going to go into a little bit of a synopsis. This is the synopsis that is on Amazon, so I'll read it and then we'll talk about it a little bit.
Mari:In every generation on the island of Fenburn, 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. Catherine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomach ache. 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 16, the battle begins. The last queen standing gets the crown. This book was published in September 20th 2016. So it's another one that's been around for a while. All right, so now we're going to go into the little bit of the non-spoilery overview general star rating of what we think, and then later on we'll get into the spoiler part. So, jonathan, what do you think?
Jonathan:of the no spoilers right of the just general general of the book I say we have big feelings.
Ashley:Yes, please no spoilers.
Jonathan:No spoilers in this one section of it. Let me see if I can clean this up. Okay, what did I? Think I'll give a general here. I spent a majority of the time angry and confused at the book. I thought that the structure was pretty cool, I thought that the concept was pretty cool, but there were some things that I got hung up on very early in the book that then led to that drove confusion in me and then, as the story progressed, I, at one point I got really upset. As the story progressed. At one point I got really upset like outburst-y angry, like I didn't throw anything but I was like texting Ashley right when I heard it. I gave her like an outburst, an exclamation of rage. It evolved in that direction. So overall, I'm sad to say that this story didn't click with me.
Ashley:Okay, I feel like your brain was working really story didn't click with me.
Jonathan:Okay, I feel like your brain was working really hard. Oh, it was. Yeah, it was definitely. It was low on oil. It was a big world for Jonathan. It was smoking. Yeah, there's a lot going on inside of my. It was working. There were a lot of names.
Ashley:Names are not his forte and there was a lot of who's this person again, but this person is Queen and I'm like no, and trying to redirect and bullet point for him. Maybe if seeing it on the page made it a little bit easier for me. But yeah, I feel like you were not a fan of this one just because it made you wear Carter, I think.
Jonathan:There was a lot, there was runoff, and then some of the names were already tied to other characters from different things in my mind. So like as far as names, katarina and then Katarina and then Mirabelle, mirabella and Madrigal, so it's like, oh, you know where I'm going with that, like I'm looking for Bruno next right, and and there's just there's so many things as we.
Jonathan:When we get into the spoilery section, I'll go deeper into, like where some of the other things threw me off and then where that anger lies, and I'll tell you right now a lot of the confusion and anger I blame Kelly for and I can. I'll tell you about that later when we get to the spoiler section. But it'll make sense. It's not in a bad way, kelly, it's just like you'll. You can wear it as a badge of honor so how many stars would you give it?
Jonathan:two, okay, sadly two. So I say this with kind it's the kindest two that I've ever given in this long, in our long. What are we? Episode three, four the longest history. This is definitely a kind two. Like I was rooting for this book and it just didn't. It didn't do it. This kick sailed wide right for me.
Mari:Kelly.
Kelly:Overall I thought it was about a three. There was some good parts of the story where it seemed to gel really well and then there were a few parts that were, like Jonathan said, that got you really aggravated, especially at what some of the characters did. But you had to. I think part of the problem was I had to keep in mind the three queens. You know they're teenagers, so yeah, they're not exactly going to be doing the smartest thing. I know I didn't do the smartest thing when I was a teenager, so I kind of have to Let a lot of that not doing the smart thing kind of keeping in mind that they're just teenagers, the characters are just teenagers. I like where the book kind of went, even if it was a little predictable. But I think there was a lot of room for more character development. I think that the author kind of teased the character development and then shut it down sometimes, so that kind of took it away a little bit for me.
Mari:Okay.
Ashley:All right, Ash, what do you think? I think the boys are tough on this one. I was entertained. I'm still scouring to get book two on Libby. I might have faked an address on Libby to try to get this next book.
Ashley:I liked it a lot. It was a big world, there were a lot of names, there were some politics, there was some sprinkling of religion. I really liked the concept of it. I'm excited to see where the series goes, because this is not a duology or a trilogy. I think there's like five books in this series so I am still clamoring to get the second book. So this one was it's not sarah j mass right, like that's a. That's a hard hill to climb for anybody, I feel. I think that's a hard hill for sarah, but I mean, I was entertained. This was a four for me.
Mari:I'm glad I read it yeah, I'm, I'm right there with you, ash, like for me. For me, it's a four, it's a very strong four, and I feel that once I read the series, what I do is I rate the series overall rather than individual books. Once I've read it all, I feel like once I read the series.
Mari:It has a very strong potential to be a five star for me. I am also awaiting trying to read the sequel. I'm two weeks out on Libby, so I'm also awaiting trying to read the sequel. I'm two weeks out on Libby so I'm on a wait list on Libby for the audiobook. I couldn't get on for the regular book but I'm like a two week out for the audiobook so I can't wait for that.
Mari:I wanted to know more. I you know. Initially, when it first started, I was a little confused and overwhelmed by all the characters, because you have each of the three would-be queens and then you have all the people in each of their courts and you have to try and remember the relationships and where they're at in the middle of the action before it goes to another chapter with another court and then you know, two chapters later you go back to the one you were at. So it took a bit of concentration and on my part it also took a little bit of just letting go of. I'm not going to remember all these characters. If they're important, I'll figure it out as I go along.
Mari:I remembered the three main chickies and a few main people in their lives, but I would say that the character development for me was very well done. I felt like all three of the main characters are different at the end than they were at the beginning. There was some movement. I feel like the plot moved pretty quickly. There was never a part where I was bored and, yeah, I immediately wanted to read the sequel. Where I was bored and yeah.
Ashley:I immediately wanted to read the sequel Immediately. It was like midnight, yeah, and I was scrambling, I was trying to figure out. I was like what do you mean? It's not on Kindle. I was not emotionally prepared for that. There was scrambling.
Mari:Was not ready. Agreed Anything else before we move on to the spoiler part Nope, bring on the spoilers. Kelly, you want to do our little spoiler bit?
Kelly:Sure. So, dear listener, from this point forward, we will be discussing spoilers. So if you have not read the book, or you want to read it later and don't want to be spoiled, I suggest you skip to the end of the show or take a pause right now. Stop, go read the book and then come back and listen when you're ready to get spoiled.
Jonathan:Spoil me Kelly.
Ashley:Get spoiled.
Mari:All right, so I gotta, I gotta know. Then the spoilery part, jonathan. What, what was the I?
Ashley:was so mad. I hate when he does this. You guys, I was so mad. I hate when he does this. You guys, I was so mad.
Kelly:This sounds like a relationship problem.
Jonathan:She's mad because I was right.
Ashley:No, I'm mad because I was, and it doesn't make sense. I was so much further along than he was and he made a comment and I was like, well, that's not unreasonable, but it was just the fact that he was right and I was so mad. It's just, you think too much, you do too much, sir, just sit down, just enjoy the book a little bit, don't get it right all the time. And he was right. I was so mad.
Jonathan:So it's Kelly's fault. So here's how it ties to Kelly. A while back, Kelly said, yeah, he broke apart the names of characters and so then that kind of like that seed planted in the back of my mind. That arsenic seed arsenic, I would think poison, right and they're like, and I would get stuck and be like you know what. Actually it doesn't sound like this is a poison, that this is the what she's supposed to be, the natural naturalist or natural, she was the natural.
Jonathan:Yeah, I was like that doesn't, I would tell. I'm struggling with this because I keep hearing her as the poisoner and I don't understand why and I'm just like, so I'm just stuck on on it. And then just that last page where everything comes, yeah, I texted her, I was like oh right, I knew it so mad.
Ashley:You're mad. I was mad Because he said it the day that I was about to finish. It wasn't a foreign concept for me, but again, I am, admittedly, a dumb reader. I am here for a good time, not for a long time. I want to be entertained, I want to be surprised, and he figured it out again. And he does this all the time.
Jonathan:You got to give it context. Ashley finished the book like two weeks before me, or whatever it is.
Ashley:Ashley read it.
Jonathan:She was done for a while. When you guys were like, hey, we're about ready to start reading this, I was like, oh, dang, ashley's done.
Ashley:I saw on Goodreads I'm like, oh, I was entertained, you guys. I had an opening. I wasn't already reading something.
Kelly:I dived right in.
Ashley:It took me like four days. Well, and it helps that it was like on the phone, right, because when you're audio booking it or like a physical book, then you're limited, but man put that on a blue screen and your girl will stay up and get it finished. There were a few late nights that week. I don't think either. I was emotionally prepared for all the perspectives, like when you read the back of the book, book, the synopsis of the book, you're. It talks about one queen. You know that and that the sister thing and everything. But I didn't know we were getting all three perspectives right. I was, I was sold. I needed to know what was going on with all of them.
Kelly:It was hard to put it down for me yeah yeah yeah, I think it think it was well written in the plot and story aspect as far as keeping you somewhat engaged. But, like Jonathan, not even halfway through the book I was pretty much decided that the naturalist was definitely a poisoner in disguise about.
Mari:I mean part of it is that, like ash, I am an immersion reader. Like I'm not trying to figure out it out, unless it's a murder mystery that I'm actively reading. For the most part, I'm not trying to figure it out too hard, I just kind of want to be along for the ride. So I I wasn't thinking about it too deeply that way and so, yeah, it surprised me at the end.
Kelly:I wasn't well, I mean, it's not like I was, you know, trying to dissect what are the character names. Let me write them down and dissect what they could possibly mean. It's just reading it I was like, well, why would you name a character that?
Ashley:Yes, exactly, no, no, no. They gave an explanation and I fell for it. They were like some other queen, the strongest one, I was like oh, that makes sense. Yeah, ashley, the sucker was fully bamboozled.
Mari:Unless I missed it, they don't really tell you how they chose their powers, Like I know that they were separated when they were six years old.
Kelly:It's said in the book that the mother of the triplets knows, like that she just knows. So it was hand-waved as just the mother of the triplets knows, like that she just knows. So it was hand waved as just the mother knows. So did the mother make a mistake? Was there a uh switched at birth scenario going on? Or was the mother wrong because the mother was a poison bothers me.
Ashley:I'm sorry, go ahead, Go ahead. I was going to say what bothers me the most about this book is Jules Jules being the strongest naturalist that they've seen in how long, and Jules being born or conceived at the same time as the triplets I don't know if their birthday is the same.
Ashley:Forgive me I'm forgetting now, but conceptually double pun there. They were conceived at the same time, the triplets and Jules, which was POV. You know the guy who may or may not be important long term. So for me and you know the talk of the years where there's four born, or the years you know the white handed queen, because there's four born or whatever like that, I think Jules is more important than we know. I just don't know what the tie in is.
Mari:I thought when they put a mask on Arsenault, I thought Jules was going to be impersonating Arsenault.
Ashley:You know what that probably would have gone smoother yeah.
Mari:I was like oh, this is where this is going. And then it didn't. And I'm like oh, uh-oh.
Ashley:That was a missed opportunity, guys. That would have been far less destructive, yeah.
Kelly:I didn't see zombie bear coming, though, that's for sure.
Mari:You didn't have that on your little bingo card? Fantasy elements. What do we think, guys? Kelly.
Kelly:I think that there was some interesting fantasy elements. The whole idea of the three queens, you know, trying to murder each other is interesting. What I thought was interesting is this whole concept that they're on this island and that there's a mainland and the people were coming to this island like through the mist you know, described it that way several times.
Kelly:When the dude I can't remember his name, but the dude who came back from exile that tried to run away, yeah, joseph, dude who came back from exile that tried to run away, yeah, joseph, when he came back from exile and they talked about they came through the mist, I was just like, well, where do you go? When you go somewhere and it's ascribed like that, it's usually like going to the Fae, right? You're going to an enchanted world or another world and they talk about, like on the mainland nobody has magic, right. So it really brings up an interesting question of how is this island different? Because it's obviously different from whatever the mainland is.
Mari:Right.
Kelly:So I think that's an interesting fantasy element, and it's kind of weird, though, that of the three powers that they talked about the most was the naturalist, the elementalist and the poisoner, and they mentioned there were people with the war gift and the what was it? The insight gift. Oracle Oracle gift.
Ashley:Yeah.
Kelly:But they didn't really have any characters prominent that had those gifts. So that was kind of interesting that the three that are the most powerful groups are the poisoner, elementalist and naturalist, which are three things very much tied into the earth. Right, the poison is stuff that comes from the earth, grows in the earth. The naturalist makes all the animals and plants grow, and the elementalist obviously controls the weather and the elemental forces of nature, whereas war and oracle are not so much tied into an actual land.
Ashley:right, it's not a physical.
Kelly:Right. So it's just interesting the choices there and how the poisoner seem to be in control of everything. And it was set up as a conflict between the group of poisoners controlling the council and this religious group trying to rest control away. And so I thought about, like well, this religious group is basically willing to stop at nothing to rest control away. So what exactly are they willing to do? Is one of the things that they would be willing to do is to when the three babies, the three princesses, are born to be queens, did they switch them? Did they switch them with somebody else? Did they switch them with commoners? Did they switch?
Kelly:We talked about like Jules is Jules really the queen? And they switched another naturalist gifted baby with her, you know, or something like that, so that they were trying to dilute the poisoner and naturalist powers in the queen so that the elementalist would obviously be the strongest one and win, so that they would get control back away from the poisoners. So there's a lot of interesting possibilities as far as the fantasy elements all together, you know the religion element and all this and the subterfuge and all of that going on. So it was a very interesting fantasy world that was created.
Mari:What would you rate it?
Kelly:I think the fantasy elements. It was really solid. I liked it, so I would say it's definitely a solid four. That's high praise, yeah what did you think, jonathan?
Jonathan:oh, I did like the fantasy elements. I think that's why I had hoped so much for for this book. It could stand for a curveball. Besides what, like you know, it's the, there's a rule of three, three and then something's not quite what it seems is at play, which is cool and all, but having that fourth sister curveball would be that would be real awesome. So for this, high hopes for the series, but I'm not holding out for it overall. In the fantasy elements, maybe a four, three, 3. Point five I want to go to a three point five. Hey, ash, did you give your okay?
Ashley:oh no, I was just waiting my turn, patiently waiting my turn it's a virtue, go ahead fantasy fantasy was a four for me. Again, I was. I was entertained, like kelly. I thought the island versus mainland concept was interesting. Kelly pointed out you know joseph's explanation of you know crossing through the mist in the water, but it was billy's explanation. Is that his name? Do they call him billy? I think they called him billy yeah, yeah, I don't remember him but they called him billy.
Mari:I don't remember who.
Ashley:Arsenoy teased him and called him junior, so that stuck with me, but like he would explain that when he was young and sailing he sailed the same waters and never happened across the island right, so it sounds like you need someone from the island to find it or the island needs to, like, accept you or something, and so for that I thought that part was interesting. I'm not sure if the third sister or the fourth sister is going to be the curveball that we see most specifically, because they talk about the triplets coloring quite a lot right Black hair black eyes, black hair, black eyes.
Ashley:If you're a queen, you have black hair and black eyes, and I don't believe that Jules has that coloring. But I think it does have something to do with the night that she was conceived or what her birthday is, if it happens to be the same as the triplets. Maybe the goddess of old, or whoever it is that their deity is, is playing a trick that way, or there's some prophecy that we've yet to find out about. The switch out makes sense, but I think that's a little bit too predictable and we don't have the coloring Like her coloring's not in the same favor. So that part, I don't know what it is. But the Jules thing is a curveball. It's coming. We got to figure it out. But the magic was fun. I don't know that.
Ashley:I've ever considered the art of poisoning a magic, so that was a new perspective for me, especially the eating it and thriving off of it. That kind of that threw me for a loop. But the familiars, the naturalists, the elementals, I thought that was really cool. I think we're going to see something. You know the trait or the magic that was mentioned but hasn't been seen for a long time. You know the war, the war planning, the oracle stuff, and maybe that's what our fourth one is, because we very obviously have a naturalist. It's just not one of the triplets. We very obviously have an elemental and very obviously have a poisoner, so I'm curious to see how that is ultimately going to play out. Also, I think I would like a familiar, so for me it was a four okay.
Mari:Yeah, I'd say for me it was also definitely a four, pretty strong four. I think there was enough variety in the magic. The magic worked together well, but it didn't make me question things. There's a lot of things I do have questions about, but I don't think it's because it's a bad magic system. I think it's because you just don't know, because it hasn't been revealed in the plot. I think the mist is almost a character in and of itself. Like, is someone controlling it? Because not only does it not let people through, but it it didn't let arsenal out.
Ashley:Oh, it doesn't let them out. Yeah, the queen's out, right, that's an interesting point like it's almost like it has its own consciousness.
Mari:it makes me think of that 60s tv show, the prisoner. I know, I know Kelly loves this show. Have either of you guys seen the Prisoner or heard of the Prisoner? Mm-mm, there's this.
Kelly:The rover. Yeah, the rover. The rover will get you if you try to escape.
Mari:You're trying to escape the island, this giant white bubble gets you and then you wake up and you're back on the island or wherever you are. The island or wherever you are yeah, the mist is definitely. It made me wonder, like, is someone still actively controlling it, or is it just a set spell on the land? Or is it its own consciousness? And then that made me think about some of the things that happened. If the mist can do that, can it do other things, can it influence things? Because I gotta say, when Mirabella and Joseph got together by the beach, it felt very much like almost a dream-like situation.
Mari:Like it was almost a compulsion you know what I mean Almost like they didn't have their own choices that they were making.
Kelly:So what you're saying is two horny teenagers, one of whom is soaking wet and getting out of wet clothes to prevent from getting frozen. That was magical, that something happened well, I thought it was magic.
Ashley:I just thought it was because arsenoy burned the bracelet or whatever, that she was making that first time with magical remember, she didn't complete the ritual, she was just like oh, this is a bad idea, I'm freaking out, I'm gonna burn this. And so I thought that the joseph and what's her name was the outcome of that right.
Kelly:I thought that her burning the, the hair bracelet thing, that was what was going to make joseph fall out of love with her with jewels, yeah, yeah, because it was supposed to be joseph and jules that they grew up together.
Mari:They were supposed to be, you know, right together forever.
Ashley:But the ritual wasn't completed and so Arsinoe tossed it in the fire. Right. So there's consequence right. Even though it wasn't completed, the magic was still imbued in there. Right Is how I processed it.
Mari:I agree, I think so too. And as for any potential switcheroo or whatever, I think it's possible that the religious group or somebody switched the triplets around, but maybe not with somebody else, maybe not with Jules. I think they switched Catherine and Arsenault, I think they. Whoever, whatever the switcheroo happened, either they did it or for some reason we don't know yet. The queen the mom said it wrong on purpose. For some reason. We don't know yet the. The queen, the mom said it wrong on purpose.
Kelly:For some reason, maybe yeah, because I agree and my my thought right now is still that, even though there's a lot of other possibilities that could happen is that katherine and arsenault were the ones that were switched. Katherine is actually a naturalist because it explains how she survived getting thrown into the bottomless pit as she's falling down, because she came back and she was all cut up right, cut up by brambles and stuff like that. So she gets thrown in as a survival instinct. She makes all the brambles and branches grow up and catch her. Yeah, so that she doesn't fall to her death.
Mari:Yeah, I didn't get that until Kelly said it.
Kelly:I kind of took that away from the description of how she looked and everything and what could be the only possible way that she survived getting thrown into the bottomless pit.
Jonathan:I was definitely surprised that she survived.
Mari:Oh yeah, me too.
Jonathan:At no point did I think that throughout the book, that I think that Aroy or katarine didn't have magic powers. I just I really, early on in the book, sense that somebody pulled the old switcheroo and now their magic isn't aligned and so, but there was some they alluded to like having weaker queens, that kind of like fake it till you make it kind of thing. And so there was that poison like so katarine would be. She was just developing some sense of tolerance to poisons throughout throughout the story. And you know there was no, there was actually no movement for arsenoy in the naturalist side of things. So it's like I kind of want to say that the weakest of all the sisters is Weathergal. What's her name?
Mari:Mirabelle Channel 6 News.
Ashley:Mirabelle yeah, channel 6 News, you're so bad.
Jonathan:I think she's the weakest one, although she's publicly the strongest one, and I think her weakness her greatest weakness is going to come down to longing for familial relationships that she's never going to find.
Mari:So Kelly and I were talking about this earlier and Kelly was asking if you had to support one of the Queens, who would you? How would you? How did you word it, kelly?
Kelly:The question is if you were in this world and you were asked which of these three queens do you support, which would it be? Because it's obvious that the everyday common person, who didn't necessarily have a lot of powers, was going to support one of the queens. And then it was the whole political thing where, like the naturalists were like, well, if we can't support our queen because she's too weak or whatever, or she gets killed, then we want the elementalists because we hate the poisoners. There was a lot of elements of the whole like which of these queens do you support or would you support in this book. So it's an interesting question to say, as someone who's read the book now, at least as far as we've gotten, which of these three queens would you personally be supporting?
Ashley:Are we basing our answers off of before we read the book or after we read the book?
Kelly:I mean, yeah, it'd be kind of hard to take away any of the knowledge you have now.
Jonathan:Like an Etch-a-Sketch. They just shake me around. So I'm hopeful for Arsinoe. I think that a lot of the story is centered around her. So I think that if it doesn't shake out that she's the one, then I think I've been set up for failure. Stranger things have happened, but something's pulling me in her direction. You know, katarina doesn't strike me as the dark horse coming out, and channel six strikes me as the clear favorite. And whenever it's the clear favorites like it's never the obvious one, like it's never like you don't watch the murder mystery and the guy who you walked into at, like the husband, isn't always the one. You know what I mean. She's had every advantage that's going to be. Her greatest downfall is her perceived strength.
Mari:So you're going with Arsinoe, right, Arsinoe you would root for. What about you, Kelly?
Kelly:So I think initially I would have said Arsinoe, because she seemed probably the best person, you know, the person who is the most benevolent at heart. But as the story went on I just really kind of felt a little bit more supportive of Catherine. I liked her story a little bit more. I like the development in her character more. I think she grew on me more than any of the other characters did. The other queens did.
Ashley:What about you, ash? So I think I think Jonathan's wrong and, I'm sorry, shocking.
Jonathan:I think we're going to see Bold move, though it's a definitely bold move. Yeah, I know.
Ashley:I'm throwing it out there because he's always right and it drives me nuts. No, but I think to Kelly's point. Arsinoe gets a lot of face time right and I think Mirabella is the currently all powerful, you know, the current favorite. I think she's got some older sister syndrome. That's gonna be what cripples her is she, I think?
Ashley:those she, I think well she definitely has, like the protective, you know, kumbaya let's we need. We should be a family we should be looking at. I don't want to kill my sisters. You know perspective. She remembers them as children. She remembers wanting to keep them safe and protect them. She remembers Arsinoe being the one that pushed. She remembers, you know, katarina being the one that would cry and be the emotional one. So to me I fully acknowledged and felt a resemblance to, like that big sister syndrome. So I think we're going to see Mirabella back down and defer to her sisters. I think Arsinoe is going to make a play for it but cave at the end because she knows what it's like to be in a family and she's going to accept her sisters. So I think they're both going to end up supporting. Is it Catherine or Katerine? Jonathan, you're the one that heard. You're the only one that heard.
Kelly:I thought it was Catherine. It looked like it was spelled. I thought it was.
Ashley:Catherine too, but he corrected me a couple of times in conversation.
Jonathan:So the auto book refers to her as Katerine, but I guess I should be super clear about where I stand on pronunciations. Super clear about where I stand on pronunciations. If I hear it as if they say pronounce it as katherine and I say it as katherine, that doesn't mean you have to read it as katherine like no, but I want to get it out, like I want to do diligence to the author too, so I wanted to respect that.
Ashley:But you know the. The pronunciation aside, I think I think if we already see an elemental, we already see a naturalist in Jules, whether or not she's part of the triplets and actually a quadruplet, or if we're talking about some other kind of magic at play, we see an elemental, we see a naturalist, we see, at the end, a poisoner in Arsinoe. I think Katarine or Catherine is something different or something more, and I think that's going to be our big plot twist, okay, and I think she's the one that's the most damaged.
Jonathan:Oh, she's definitely damaged 100%. Yeah, I agree with that she had no love.
Ashley:She had minimal family. There were no hugs and there was no sibling in the way that the other two had, because even mirabella had it on her side. She grew up, you know, with a family. She grew up with someone her age and so I think we're gonna see some growth from her. I think we're gonna see some revenge out of her with how the last one ended, but she's the only one with an undefined power, so you think her that's who you would go.
Mari:I think it's her. Yeah, yeah, I initially like I like Arsinoe the character. She seems like an interesting person and at the beginning I like a little bit of how resourceful she she is, how willing she is to do whatever to get what she wants. But I think that can be very dangerous with a lot of power, like a person in power, a person who's ruling, who's willing to do whatever to get what they want, can go really bad. And kind of the same thing with Mirabella. I like Mirabella but I has. I would be hesitant to support her because she's been so tied to the religious group for so long and hasn't seemed to seen their manipulations or care that she's being manipulated. So to me Catherine has a really interesting storyline and at the you know towards the end, where she's just like, comes back like a ghoul from the dead and you know peter pushed her in she is a wrathful spirit ready to like kick butt and take names and chew bubblegum and be out of bubblegum like I really have theories why he did that.
Ashley:I don't think my brain processed the why of that.
Mari:I think he was paid to do it. I think that's why he was there. I think he was there. He was being used. In my opinion, his whole point of being there was to get rid of her. I don't know why, though I don't know who hired him or who put him there, and I do believe what he said, that he wasn't, he wasn't supposed to fall in love with her. Well, he says he fell in love with her, but then he murderized her anyway, or attempted to. So yeah, I I think that was his whole point of being. That was he was supposed to do something like that he doesn't know.
Jonathan:She survived, correct? He's not yet no, he thinks he did what he was supposed to do and moved along. So the other thing here to think about, maybe, is like if they had to do something to trigger who she was, maybe he's in the know. Maybe they were just like, hey, this is a stretch, this is a real big stretch. But maybe the puppet master pulled him aside and said hey, it's time for us to play our hand and this is what you have to do.
Mari:Or maybe pie in the sky. Maybe they'll rule together. Maybe they don't have to kill each other.
Ashley:Like a family? Probably not, I don't know how family works how messed up, is it?
Mari:at 16 to be like hey, go kill your sisters.
Ashley:Well, and that they're groomed that way, right, that's the thing.
Kelly:They're not just like oh, I have to kill my sister, I know I have to do that. It's. They've been told that they have to do that. From what? The age of six.
Ashley:Yeah, if not before, then you know they pull them apart at the age of six so that hopefully there's not a lot of memory there, right, right. So that's pretty screwed up. That should screw up anybody being yanked from. You know the family that you have.
Kelly:Right, but going back to why Peter pushed Catherine into the chasm I think it's some of what Jonathan was saying. I think he was sent in to try and see if he can't, hey, go in there, see if you can bring Catherine up to speed, make her a viable option to keep the poisoners in control, and if you don't, then dispose of her.
Ashley:Or he's a plant from the religious sect. Because wasn't? Didn't he claim to dislike his new stepmother? Because she was super into the church thing?
Kelly:new stepmother because she was like super into the church thing. Yeah, so it's possible, there's a lot of options, but I don't think it was just a a whim that he did that. I think there was definitely a plan for why he did that plans, that's like a full 180 to me.
Ashley:I didn't see that coming. I saw some. I saw a couple things coming. I saw the potential switch. I saw I don't see zombie bear, no, but you know a for effort. There I was thoroughly entertained what are you talking about?
Mari:romance. Romance is next. I'll go first on romance. Haven't gone first yet.
Mari:For me, romance is a three and it's a very low three.
Mari:And the reason is, even though you have a potentially romantic entanglement for each of the main would-be queens, I didn't trust any of them. Peter says he loves Katharina, but he pushed her off into a hole, and Joseph and Mirabella seem like this little love thing going on, or at least lust. But I also, like I said, it seemed also like some sort of magical enchantment that came over them, like their connection is so all consuming every time they see each other that it almost seems like they lose the ability to make their own choices, like there's some outside force that's making it happen. And so the only one that I feel that might be like romance, true romance, is Arsinoe and Billy. Especially when he like went at the towards the end and just bowed to her, I was like, ooh, so for me there was, there was some romance in there. I just don't, I don't trust it. I don't know if it was full romance, because at this point, the way that this story ended, I almost don't trust anything I read and I want to know more.
Ashley:Ash, what do you think Romance was a two? For me, there might have been some sexy stuff, and I think we've seen a lot of really powerful friendship, love, if not devotion, but it wasn't romantic to me. I don't feel that anything Joseph did with either woman or Billy, I don't think it was romantic as much as it was devotion and I don't know if Arsinoe and Billy are going to end up together, but I think she impacted him in a positive way. I think he grew because of her and that says something about his character. This was very, very minimal romance, though, for me, kelly.
Kelly:Yeah, I agree with Ashley. I think the romance was the two Very minimal. There was a lot of young lust between teenagers minimal. There was a lot of young lust between teenagers, but it seemed like there was going to be with Peter and Catherine until he threw into the pit. So you question yourself, you know, was he just playing the game all along or did he actually have some kind of romantic feelings for it but in the end had to do the bidding of whoever? I don't think there was a whole lot of romance, of real romance.
Mari:Jonathan.
Jonathan:Yeah, it's a total two for me as well. I really think for me, the only way to save the romance in this series is to heat it up with Jules and Arsinoe. I think that could be the saving romantic for the series. For me, what was there was interesting. It seemed dirty and backhanded Like it's two didn't do it for me.
Mari:Okay, what about spice guys?
Jonathan:It was like paprika. It just made the top look a little dainty, that's all.
Mari:They're giving it like a one for spice.
Jonathan:Yeah.
Kelly:Okay, all right, kelly, look a little dainty. That's all they're giving it like a one for spice. Yeah, okay, all right, kelly, I would probably go with a one or one and a half it. There was the whole thing at the beach and seems to be.
Ashley:That was pretty much it ash, I guess in my brain I'm I'm trying to separate the romance versus the spice. The beach scenes seem spicy, but I don't feel like it went into a lot of detail. Yeah, I think the spice for me was like a one.
Mari:Yeah, I agree. For me the spice was a one as well, which I mean it is a YA book, like it's. The category that it's marked on Amazon is 14 to 17 year olds, so I mean I think it's spice appropriate for the age category that it's supposed to be for. So I would say a one Spice for me too.
Kelly:Yeah, that's a perfect age range for this book. Hey you, 16 year olds, you think your life is hard.
Mari:You think you had it hard, so let's go over the cover. The cover art was designed by Aurora Parlagreco and then it was digitized by John Dismooks. There is an interview with Aurora Parlagreco that we'll include in the show notes, where she talks about coming up with it. What do you think about the cover? I guess, describing the cover, it's the one that's black and it has the three crowns on it. I do you think about the cover? I guess describing the cover, it's the one that's black and it has the three crowns on it.
Kelly:I mean, it's pretty simple as far as it being representative of what's actually in the book. I mean, I guess there's three queens, there's three different crowns, you know, but it doesn't really tell you much. You'd have to actually read the inside cover flap or the back to get a better idea of what's going on. Because, for all you know, it could be three dudes, it could be three demons, it could be anything three different countries right.
Kelly:So you know, as far as the cover art representing what was in the book, this is probably like a one ash, what do you think?
Ashley:I like the cover a lot. Actually, I was sitting here staring at it. I don't think I paid a ton of attention to it in the ebook, right, we very quickly bypass that as digital readers often. We very quickly bypass that as digital readers often. So I mean, in really looking at it today, I liked it a lot. Yeah, it's super simple. I actually think it would make a really good spine, like on your trophy shelf.
Ashley:But I also, like in my deep dive, of course, I found more covers, which irritates my husband to to no extent, and that's part of the joys of my life. Stuff down your browling, um. But to kelly's point, I think that maybe these are the uk covers and so there are different covers, um, for each queen, each crown and what they released once upon a time, possibly overseas. I'm seeing a UK sticker price on this and on those covers it says Three Sisters, one Throne, a Fight to the Death, and then it's that queen's crown with the title and the author on there, and so I think those are really, really beautiful with each representation of the magic on the crown, but I don't dislike it. I think the simple one that we have on our Kindles is super nice. That's a three and a half for me. I don't know that I would have passed it without picking it up, if that makes sense.
Kelly:I mean I don't dislike the cover, it's just I don't think it really gives you a good insight about what's in the book.
Ashley:You would have passed it in the bookstore.
Kelly:I would have totally passed it in the bookstore I would have been like oh shiny crowns.
Jonathan:Jonathan must see I like simplicity, but I think there's, of the three crowns on the cover, only one really aligns to me with with the queen, the like katarine's crown. When you get to the channel six, she's I mean, it's just fire, right, and then arson. Oh wait, sorry. I mean, uh see, this is where I get confused again, right, so back to the arsenal. So it's arsenoy's crown on the cover, which is like the naturalist, so the wildlife and stuff like that, that kind of pokes, and then channel six is just fire on there. And then the poison crown is has snakes on it and that's venom, that's not poison. Those are two different things, but then they got. Now I'm stuck with trying to figure out like each word has a letter that stands apart. So like in three it's the r and then the d in dark, and then the o in crowns, but then at the top, kendari's name, the k stands out. So I've got d-o-r-k and I think it holds true so I'm gonna yeah now I think the art, the art's cool all.
Mari:All right, all right. For me, the cover was beautiful and I absolutely would have stopped and picked it up and looked at it. It's very much your aesthetic, yeah, absolutely Like it's got almost that art gallery or like fancy jewelry store or royal jewelry display, like museum, where you have this very clean black background and then you have the one piece on highlight on display. Yeah, so I really liked it visually. I would have been drawn to it to at least pick it up and look at it, and I think that it very much relates to what's in the book. You have three crowns. The top one is the naturalist crown. You have the greenery and the purple flower. The middle one has the fire in it for the elemental magic, and then the bottom one has the snakes, which is like Katrina's little pet coral snake. For me it was a five. I don't think I could have done anything better with this. Yeah, I really liked it.
Kelly:Wow, we really ran the gamut of ratings on that.
Mari:And then the last question, the all important question is it a kissing book?
Jonathan:Nope, no.
Mari:I agreed. Solid, no, it's a wonderful book. Obviously I bought to know more, but I think that if the little bit of romance that in it wasn't in it, I don't, I don't think it would have changed anything. I don't think anyone did anything out of love. Necessarily Any big, big things in the plot were tied to romance, you know.
Kelly:I think that the only thing you could say as far as things were done out of romance was, you know, initially arsenic trying to make sure that Jules was set up. What's his name? That was Joseph that was exiled. So there was that. But for this book by itself, no, it is not Romanesie. Now, maybe this series as a whole would become Romanesie, but this individual book, no.
Mari:I agree, we're in agreement. All right, not a kissing book. And for our rapid fire question for this session, we will discuss the Dune movie and decide whether or not it's romantic. Is Dune a kissing book?
Kelly:Which Dune.
Mari:The Dune movie, we'll say the new Dune movie, the one that was released recently. In the past few years Dune or Dune, dune, that we're talking about Dune, the Dune movie, we'll say the new Dune movie, the one that was released recently in the past few years.
Jonathan:Dune or Dune, dune that.
Kelly:we're talking about Dune, so the first one, or the first one and the second movie? Well, I don't know, because the first movie is not the complete story right.
Mari:That's true. The two movies equal the first book. So, yeah, let's talk about the we've all seen both movies, right, yeah? Let's talk about dune and dune, dune. Yeah, I'm gonna say it's a.
Jonathan:I felt it was a kissing story, I agree with you. Huh yeah, hard, hard.
Mari:Yes, we've spent kelly kelly's kelly's got feelings I'll tell you more kelly tell me more yeah, good kelly I disagree.
Kelly:What was in it that made it a romantic?
Mari:story there was.
Kelly:There was not a romantic element that if you removed it, it fell apart.
Mari:Number one for me. The whole reason that Paul Maudie, paul Atreides exists is because of Jessica's love for the Duke. She was told to bear a daughter and she chose to bear a son. In this world, the Bene? Jesits can control whether they have girls or boys. She made the conscious choice to have a son because Duke Leto wanted a son, so she gave him a son out of love. If she hadn't done that, you wouldn't have the Kwisatz Haderach. You wouldn't have the story that you have.
Kelly:But that's like saying that the book we just talked about, Three Dark Crowns, is romantic because the queen that gave birth to the three, the triplets, loved her husband.
Mari:Okay.
Kelly:So I don't think that that's a fair way to say something is romantic.
Jonathan:Where it anchors, as a romanticist, is that Paulie is envisioning Frankie throughout the entire story as being the prophecy of them being together and something evolving in that storyline that hinges on them. Follow me like the white rabbit. Follow me, and he's stunned by her. Throughout, even from their first meeting, he's been dreaming about her and getting these visions and it feels as though they're destined to be with one another and then, when they arrive at that point in the story, it kind of anchored it for me.
Kelly:Paul Atreides was going to end up in the desert with the fremen, regardless of frankie, because he doesn't even meet her until after he's well established. Joining with them right. So it's. Their relationship is immaterial to the plot but he dreams of her right right.
Ashley:Would he have so heavily invested in crossing the desert going to the south? Would he have continued to fight so hard as a from a fremen, if not his premonitions of her right of chani?
Kelly:I don't chicken and egg thing yeah, I don't think so. I think that that and egg thing yeah, I don't think so. I think that that was immaterial.
Mari:Okay, so you say no. I say yes, jonathan, you said yes.
Jonathan:I said yeah, yeah, ash what do you think?
Mari:Yes, isn't that what you said? So?
Ashley:I, yeah, I think it's interesting everybody's viewpoint because Mari and Kelly, you guys know ends right or at least this like first section of the series.
Ashley:Knowing the very basic elements that I know, I hate to agree with my husband. Uh, though I will agree with harry I because he dreams of her and because that seems a central part to the story, well, at least in the movie. I can't account for the books. I think if she were not present, I think if he had not met her, I don't, I don't know that he would have dived into the prophecy in the way that he ultimately did.
Mari:So for me it's because, yeah, one thing I will add just before anybody um, actually us, I know, I think at least kelly and I know that jessica and duke leto were not married. She was his concubine, she was his official concubine. Duke leto never married. He left it open for for power. Are we done with rapid fire? We put our, put our guns away. Thanks for listening to of swords and soulmates. Before we go, make sure to check the show notes, rate and review us on your podcast app of choice and follow us on Instagram at ofswordsandsoulmates, or join our Facebook page of Swords and Soulmates. If you'd like to offer a suggestion for a future rapid fire question, reach out to us there. If you'd like to read along with us as we prep for a new episode, follow us on Goodreads at of Swords and Soulmates. We hope you'll join us in two weeks for our next episode when we review Sebastian Nothwell's Oak King, holly King. See you then. Thank you for watching.
