Serpent & Dove Review

         

 

GoodReads:

Bound as one to love, honor, or burn.

Two years ago, Louise le Blanc fled her coven and took shelter in the city of Cesarine, forsaking all magic and living off whatever she could steal. There, witches like Lou are hunted. They are feared. And they are burned.

Sworn to the Church as a Chasseur, Reid Diggory has lived his life by one principle: thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. His path was never meant to cross with Lou’s, but a wicked stunt forces them into an impossible union—holy matrimony.

The war between witches and Church is an ancient one, and Lou’s most dangerous enemies bring a fate worse than fire. Unable to ignore her growing feelings, yet powerless to change what she is, a choice must be made.

And love makes fools of us all.

My Review

A super enjoyable read that had me chuckling out loud, which doesn’t often happen, usually I chuckle on the inside.

Mahurin has a fantastic writing voice and her style flows so seamlessly that time seems to pass by in the blink of an eye when I read this book.

This book was something I terribly needed, entertaining and full of magical goodness and bawdy songs.

Lou was such a FUN MC, and one I could easily root for, I loved everything about her, her wit, her appetite, and her scheming. Especially her scheming!

You toss in someone like Lou with someone like Reid and I immediately begin to build an altar in honor of that ship. Seriously, the arranged marriage gave me life.

More than that though I also really loved Reid, I thought that he was also really well developed and sometimes in these types of stories, the love interest can fall flat, but not this one. Reid was not only well developed but the tension of their relationship as it grew and morphed was superbly drawn out.

The cast of side characters was brilliant as well, I loved Beau, Coco, and Ansel, I hope we get to see more of them in Blood and Honey, and while I know book 2 is out, I’ll be waiting for my FairyLoot box to read it!

Pacing was well done as I mentioned earlier I could read this forever and not notice that anytime has passed which was impressive as it was a bit of a chonky looking book. This story was more plot based too, so that helped with pacing, and while the world is definitely interesting it was not the focus. We got tantalizing glimpses of other parts of this magical world and I think book 2 will really expand on that and I’m super looking forward to it.

I was definitely surprised by some reveals and turn of events and that ending cinched my decision on whether to get a special edition of book two more, I loved the culmination of everything in this really jaw dropping ending.

Though it was extremely enjoyable to read it was also nothing that ‘wowed’ me in a sense which is why I rounded down to 4 on GoodReads, it was such a popular book as well that I didn’t think my rounding down would harm its ratings either.

So! 4.5 Cups of Coffee for this read and I’ll be eagerly awaiting reading and reviewing book 2 next month!