Serpent & Dove
Synopsis
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.
Review
Serpent & Dove is a book that takes every expectation you have, and subverts it by the end. Shelby Mahurin is a wickedly clever writer and an absolute master of character voice—not only for her point of view characters (Lou and Reid), but for each minor character in a scene. She breathes life into these insanely different individuals with strong personal identities and agendas, and then nudges them all slowly together in the framework of the story. It’s a display of beautiful craftsmanship and deep, abiding love for storytelling.
While Serpent & Dove is largely about Lou and Reid’s romance, the theme of love remains central to every other twist and huge point of conflict—whether it’s hidden, withheld, discarded, or discovered. It’s used intentionally as a tool, and unwittingly as a motivation, and it affects change in every facet of her world. And it is especially potent in a world with Chasseurs (holy witchhunters of the Church) and witches locked in eternal conflict. Without love, there is no desire or need to change—no need for the huntsman to see witches as human, no need for the witch to see a Chasseur as anything more than a cog in a machine. No need for two witches of different blood lines and legacies to become friends despite the odds.
The characters themselves are incredibly dynamic, though it may not seem like it on the outset. You have the bold, brash, middle-finger-to-authority Lou, the stoic holy man Reid, the mysterious best friend Coco, the puppy-ish novitiate Ansel. But as these characters undergo challenge after challenge and face every one of their worst demons both in the world around them and the darkest parts of themselves, their layers are slowly peeled back and we get to see what lies beneath the surface. Lou never loses her foul-mouthed charm and careless humor, but we find so many layers beneath these—a golden childhood, a deeply painful betrayal, a total shattering of worldview and scrambling to create a new life. In Reid and Ansel, we glimpse men who have been told how to feel, act, believe their entire lives and that they’ve been set apart for a higher mission, only to see the brutal reality of what that entails. And Coco is nearly a main character in herself, for how her role and life unfolds before our eyes.
Mahurin’s world-building is darkly beautiful, like a late autumn night full of rustling leaves and shifting shadows. Her settings are beautifully designed, cold and gritty, leaving dirt beneath your fingernails and the taste of honey on your tongue. She is a master of dramatic and romantic tension, able to pull the threads of it through a scene like the golden patterns her Dame Blanches spy in the book. She knows when to hold them taut so you’re helpless to put the book down, and when to cut it sharply with a splash of humor (usually by Lou or Beau) to allow you breath and highlight the real danger all the more.
I have pre-ordered my copy of Blood & Honey and will likely be rereading over and over again until the day comes when it arrives.
Recommendations
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black — YA Fantasy. Hate-to-love, high-stakes, strong female protagonist, subverted expectations. Jude must navigate how to survive in the High Court of Faerie, serve as a spy, and avoid her most hated foe, Prince Cardan.
Enchantée by Gita Trelease — YA Historical Fantasy. French-inspired, brooding, magical, revolution in the backdrop. Camille uses dark magic forbidden by her mother to infiltrate the court of Versailles and provide for her little sister, all while revolution simmers in the backdrop and in her own circles.
