Serpent & Dove Series Book Reviews

On this page, find all of my reviews of the three books in the Serpent & Dove series, by Shelby Mahurin. Each review begins with a brief overview of the book's content (with a publisher-supplied blurb), before diving into my review. 

Shelby Mahurin grew up on a small farm in rural Indiana, where sticks became wands and cows became dragons. Her rampant imagination didn't fade with age, so she continues to play make-believe every day—with words now instead of cows. When not writing, Shelby watches The Office and reads voraciously. She still lives near that childhood farm with her very tall husband and semiferal children. Serpent & Dove is her debut novel. Visit her online at www.shelbymahurin.com. You can read more of my reviews of her work here.

*These reviews can all be found on my Goodreads page*

Serpent & Dove

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. As a huntsman of the Church, Reid Diggory has lived his life by one principle: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. But when Lou pulls a wicked stunt, the two are forced into an impossible decision—marriage. Lou, unable to ignore her growing feelings, yet powerless to change what she is, must make a choice. And love makes fools of us all. 

I'm not entirely sure why I expected this book to be any better than the other books on BookTok, but hope I did. Was I fooled by the beautiful cover? Absolutely. Was I hopelessly enamored by the French aspect of the fantasy? 100%. But, Serpent & Dove woefully falls short of its potential, the last nail in the coffin for me as far as I'm concerned about what BookTok thinks are good books. 

Before I get started, I just need to point out that the very first Goodreads review on this book really hits the nail on the head as far as everything that's annoying and problematic about Serpent & Dove. I can't say it any better than they can.

What first caught my eye was the French fantasy element. I honestly might have read this a lot sooner (and thus, probably would have liked it more) if I had known about this. Unfortunately, past the very basic translations of things into the French language, the Francophone elements don't evolve any further than that. The magic system is basic, and inconsistent. It's difficult to understand why the author leaned into French as the language, without complicating the world in any interesting way. For example, there is a Catholic mass verbatim written into the story. It all begged the question: why French and Catholic Church and witches? Why is there a magic system in the first place? Why even make this a fantasy, with a prejudicial system as old as time? Not every story needs such validation, of course, but one that is as basic and frustrating as this one definitely does. The only interesting thing about the magic system is the "balance" element, and even that wasn't highlighted as much as it could have been. And let's not forget to mention how the whole first fifth of the book revolves around Lou stealing a ring of invisibility, and then she never even uses it? 

Let me circle back to these characters for a second. At 22% in, I literally couldn't for the life of me understand why I should have worried or cared about Reid's and Lou's marriage. Their arrangement makes no sense to me, and I didn't understand what was on the line for them in this marriage other than Reid's status/reputation. But, whatever. Of course they fall in love, and even that has no element of authenticity to it. I mean, when Lou calls Reid "husband" all the time, I literally started to forget what Reid's actual name was. I couldn't understand how that evolution from hate to love happened—they just fell in love because they were supposed to. I didn't believe that their feelings towards one another had changed. Both of these characters are extreme stereotypes, and so it was frustrating that we didn't get a good arc for either of them. The only interesting thing that anyone did was Reid killing the Archbishop. (Because even that "twist" with Reid's abilities at the end felt like an incredible cop-out.) Otherwise, I could have cared less about all of the characters.

And finally, the foreshadowing was extremely heavy-handed. It was too easy to see exactly what the "plot twists" were supposed to be, because conversations chapters earlier had literally spelled everything out for readers. This meant that other details that were actually interesting and compelling fell by the wayside—like, what is this monetary system? What is the geography of the world? Can someone please explain the magic system more fully, and describe the different types of witches? And are there only witches and Chassuers—where does the rest of the population fall in? This world felt incredibly incomplete, and its characters like small puppets without a purpose. It all created one of the most frustrating reading experiences I've ever had.

Despite all of this, I will be reading the next two books in the trilogy, if only because I already own them, and I'm a sucker for wanting to know how things end. So, you can stay tuned for my review.

Blood & Honey

Lou, Reid, Coco, and Ansel are on the run from coven, kingdom, and church—fugitives with nowhere to hide. To survive, they need allies. Strong ones. But as Lou becomes increasingly desperate to save those she loves, she turns to a darker side of magic that may cost Reid the one thing he can't bear to lose. Bound to her always, his vows were clear: where Lou goes, he will go; and where she stays, eh will stay. Until death do they part.

The second novel of Shelby Mahurin's novel is set up rather perfectly: you have the pretty matching cover; all of the named characters are alive and well; and there's a social media fanbase that loves these characters and this world beyond reason. However, Blood & Honey is just as disastrous as its predecessor, and below, I'll break down exactly why.

After disliking Serpent & Dove, I knew that I wouldn't like Blood & Honey at all, but I was curious. I already owned the second two books in the series, so I wanted to give it a shot. Here's what I found:

This book rivals its predecessor in inconsistencies. It's hard to believe that Reid, who has been trained as a soldier since childhood, would fall from tree branches/be unable to recover before hitting the ground, or that he'd be felled so easily in any of the fights in this novel. It's hard to believe that Beau would consider Lou his "sister" despite only being halfway related to Reid, whom he didn't even know was his brother until recently, and brotherhood isn't something developed between those two characters at all. And, why does Lou provoke Reid into a fight to teach Ansel something, the day before she knows he might die, if she loves him so much? None of this adds up.

Speaking of not adding up, Lou's and Reid's relationship is decidedly incredibly toxic. Neither of them truly knows what marriage means, other than this weird possessive vibe, because they don't actually take the time to learn how to communicate with one another. It's beyond frustrating to be reading something, knowing that half of the problems could be resolved if Lou and Reid just had a conversation like normal people. Instead, we get gems like "I had to fix her" from Reid about Lou, and Lou's complete temperature changes over Reid that makes one wonder if this should even be classified as a romance at all.

I'm still beyond confused about Beau—he just appeared unexplained in Serpent & Dove, and he's still rather unexplained in this second novel. He suddenly knows who Célie is, enough to care about her whereabouts, and cares about his image, but we never actually get a fully developed character out of him. Based on how this ends, that's just such a shame to me.

I was irritated by how these characters, who are supposed to be early 20s, blew their cover early on in the book, in their first attempt to do reconnaissance. Supposedly, Reid is this great soldier and Lou trained under the queen of witches—I would have expected better "street smarts" from them regarding how to move politically through the ranks. Instead, they act younger than they are, and then they bully the actual youngest of them (Ansel) for wanting to step up to their level. If Reid and Lou were just better at communicating with one another and better at putting their skills to the task, this entire novel could have amounted to something. Because instead, the plot consists of: Lou making poor choice after poor choice, and everyone else having to clean up the mess.

The problem with this entire set-up, too, is that we never get to actually know any of the other characters in a meaningful way. Coco has a complicated background with her coven—but we don't get to hear about that. Beau has a complicated relationship with his father, and it seems like he's motivated by a desire to be a better leader than him—but we never actually get to see that in any full form. Ansel, despite training, is still a bad soldier—why is a question that will go unanswered. Madame Labelle, Claud, Gaby, Célie, Bas—there's a whole host of side characters who have incredibly interesting stories and narratives that could truly layer the novel, but they are left by the wayside in favor of under-developing a toxic relationship.

The only potentially redeeming element of this story is how there are some interesting conversations between Lou or Reid, and the aforementioned side characters. Some of them make really interesting points that lead to some main character self-reflection. Are those pieces of advice acted on in the way they should be? Mostly definitely not, but that's about all we get. Otherwise, we're poorly grounded in this world, and the only thing that really seems to exist is the relationship between Lou and Reid, one that is definitely not something people should aspire to have, as toxic as it is.

This felt more like a rant than a book review, and for that, I must apologize. But I won't be able to close the curtains on this until I read the series finale, Gods & Monsters, so I guess I'll be back to ranting here shortly, when I read that one. Stay tuned for the rant.

Gods & Monsters

Lou has spent her whole life running. Now, after a crushing blow from Morgane, the time has come to go home—and claim what is rightfully hers. But this is no longer the Lou her friends knew. No longer the Lou who captured a chasseur's heart. A darkness has settled over her, and this time it will take more than love to drive it out. 

Definitely the most interesting read of the series, Gods & Monsters is the finale book in the Serpent & Dove trilogy. While the entire series did not live up to its potential, at least its finale is a whirling, action-packed saga.

This book was an absolute whirlwind, and definitely much longer than it needed to be. While the previous book felt like a filler, this one also felt full of those moments, but at least progress was made for a more definitive ending. I was absolutely frustrated by the cliffhanger in Blood & Honey—why did Nicholina force her way into Lou, anyways?—and wasn't satisfied at all by how that turned out. 

Anyways, if you continue reading, this will include spoilers. Read at your own risk!

I was infuriated by the plot twists: Lou getting possessed by Nicholina, and then not even understanding what part Nicholina played in the whole thing was weird and felt counterproductive. As in, just a way to incapacitate Lou's character while the other characters figured things out. And then, right when you get Lou back, then Reid is incapacitated by memory loss. Memory loss is one of my absolute least favorite tropes, because it feels like the biggest cop-out a writer can use. So now, not only is the group trying to find a way to save the world, but also Reid is battling his prejudices—again—and learning how to fall in love with Lou—again—to get to that happily ever after ending. All in all, I thought this plot-line was a waste of time, and it would have been much more interesting seeing Reid try to reason with the Chassuers about why witches aren't bad, rather than trying to redo everything he had already learned.

Going back to Lou being possessed—it was so frustrating that none of her friends, whom she claims to call a found family, thought it a good idea to ask her what was wrong? Instead, they all assumed it was grief about Ansel, or grief about the situation. And when it turned out to be deeper than that, they just went behind her back? Reid saying that he had to "fix" Lou for the second time in the series was two too many times for me, and really does not make me believe they're actually in love—because no one in love would talk about someone they love like they're "broken" to the point of needing someone else to "fix" them. It was just a gross dialogue overall. 

And while I'm not surprised that there are loose ends that weren't tied up, I'm still annoyed by them. I keep going back to Angelica's ring in the first book, and how Lou and the group never fell back on its power. The ring made a slight reappearance, but nothing significant that I noted. The characters never truly had space in the book to mourn Ansel's death, and it was almost like he hadn't existed at all. Those small references and that heartfelt moment in the middle and the end just felt fake, based on how little we actually saw the characters grieve. And with the seeds from Madame Sauvage—why was it so important to plant pear trees, exactly? And how come there isn't a more clearly defined answer to who exactly she is? It just leaves the series on such a weird note. 

I will say this: everyone says that Lou and Reid are great. But in my opinion, they are either annoying, hypocritical, or incapacitated for the entire series. The characters that are truly great (or should have been described as "suffering the most" or "doing the most") were all the side characters whose stories we never truly dove into. Coco, in my opinion, did some of the most impressive and important magic, and she never grew into a character outside of being Lou's best friend. Even Célie had an amazing arc, but I couldn't really say so definitively, because we never truly got to explore that with her. By focusing so much energy on Lou and Reid, there are so many other characters who get lost, whose stories won't get told in canon, and it's so sad, because those characters were the most interesting, and were the ones that truly seemed to move everything forward.

Finally, to end on a positive note, I did find Gods & Monsters more interesting to read. I wasn't totally bored while reading it, and I was interested in seeing exactly how the series ended. I felt the weight of all the untapped potential in it, but I did find some moments to be genuinely interesting and action-packed.

The lesson that I have learned is that I will definitely be steering away from all BookTok recommendations, at least until the next time I'm convinced by a pretty cover and an interesting synopsis to pick something up from that space. But, you can always find a book review of a book I love on this page, so don't forget to explore more of my reviews!