An impossible romance, magic, and witch hunters: when I read the summary of Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin, I immediately knew this book was going to be right up my alley. Unfortunately, although I did enjoy reading book one to a certain extend, this was not the series for me.
Burn the witch!
I might consider the above mentioned elements the ingredients of a successful story myself, but I’m quite sure the main characters would say they are the ingredients of a disaster in the making. Louise le Blanc is a Dame Blanche, a white witch, who has fled her coven and who is now living undercover as a thief – without magic. Her coven is not the only danger out there, however, because the church is also on the prowl. The Chasseurs are witch hunters who only have one goal in life: the eradication of all witchcraft. Their captain, Reid Diggory, is a young man with strict principles who wholeheartedly believes his religion’s doctrines. Two complete opposites who are forced together by fate when they are obliged to get married.
I truly wish I loved this more
Isn’t that a delightful start for a novel? Nothing pleases me more than impossible romances, and especially so when the story is set in a fantasy world. To be honest, though, Cesarine might be an imaginary city, there are more than a few parallels with Western history to be found: Witch trials, the constant tension between church and paganism, and even the city’s structure calls to mind Paris of the late Middle Ages.
The characters were sufficiently developed and I loved the changes in point-of-view as these allowed you to understand both sides of the story. Next to this, the book contains a surprising amount of humour, which was a bit naughtier than I expected from a YA book, but this ensures that certain older readers will also appreciate the story.
The book follows a typical Romeo-and-Juliet plot, which, of course, creates its own challenges (e.g. the danger of clichés, superficial situations, stereotypical characters). I was pleasantly surprised that this book managed to stay away from most of those.
However, while the book started out by capturing my attention, I got increasingly distracted by the immature writing style (not to mention the completely insane behaviour of most of the characters). This made the story easy to read and funny, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. If I had been 14, I probably would have loved it. To be fair, that’s probably the target audience. As an adult YA reader, I’m just expecting more. As I am aware though that this story definitely has potential for its intended audience, I wasn’t to severe when giving out gemstones: three out of five gemstones:
Note: It probably won’t come as a surprise that I won’t be continuing this series. Instead, I will jump to the adult spin-off set in the same world, The Scarlet Veil (no worries, I am aware that this will spoil the end of the original trilogy).
Age Category: Young adult (lower in age, around 14)
Do you want to discover more?
If my review inspired you to pick up the first book, don’t hesitate to check it out at Goodreads or at the below online stores:
Amazon.nl: Hardcover Edition
Special editions
Throughout the years, Fairyloot has published special editions of all books of this trilogy. Book 1, Serpent & Dove was their Young Adult subscription pick of September 2019. This edition had only limited customisations: shimmery edges, and some were signed. They did a reprint of this edition in 2020.
In 2020, they also launched a “special edition box”, which included book 2, Blood & Honey, as well as several matching items, among which a gilded tarot deck. This edition was much more customised, as it contained not only bonus content, but also came with an exclusive cover, a reversible dust-jacket, endpaper artwork, shimmery edges, and was signed by the author. The original price of this box was about € 43.
Finally, in 2021, they published part 3, Gods & Monsters as a separate special edition. This edition had a reversible dust-jacket, endpaper art, shimmery edges, and was also signed by the author.
Similar to this
Are you looking for more books set in the same world and don’t mind a more adult tale? Shelby Mahurin continued the story in 2023 with a new adult series, starting off with The Scarlet Veil.
If you are into witch/witch-hunter romances, I highly recommend The Crimson Moth by Kristen Ciccarelli (published in the US as Heartless Hunter). I fell in love with these characters and they refuse to let me go. My review will follow soon, but I can already reveal that I gave this one five gemstones!
On the Serpent & Dove Trilogy
As mentioned above, I personally will not be continuing the series beyond book 1. Below, I’ve added links to the Goodreads Entries for the next parts of the series in case you want more information:
- Book 2: Blood & Honey
- Book 3: Gods & Monsters