Blood & Honey (Serpent & Dove, #2)

by Shelby Mahurin

[thepunktheory]

Full review on my blog!


It’s been a hot minute since I read the first book, so there are a lot of things I don’t remember. I did remember though, that I had one point of criticism that rather irked me while reading. When I started with this novel, that feeling pretty much had vanished and I honestly don’t know if it’s just because it’s been so long since I read part 1 or because the dynamic is so much better now. The point in question is a witch hunter and a witch falling in love. How Reid and his brothers talked about witches bothered me, they weren’t seen as human.

Well, Reid has learned a thing or two about himself and about the world since then. I enjoyed this book a lot because it showcases his struggles nicely. His entire worldview was shattered in the last book. He knows he was wrong. But that doesn’t mean it’s super easy to shed prejudices and lessons that were drilled into your head over the course of your entire life. He has a lot to learn, a lot to come to terms with. That is a work in progress, it’s not something that can happen overnight.

Lou has struggles of her own and while we explore some of those, I think we can do more in the next book. Her inner conflicts are great, and she is growing though. In fact, there is a lot of character development and growth going on for a bunch of characters and it’s great. I really appreciate that everything is depicted as a process, nobody just flicks a switch and that’s it.

I wish I’d remembered more from the first book but the story really is growing on me. There’s a lot of stuff going on and it works well with the pace of the novel. It’s never overwhelming or boring. We get a good balance between action-packed chapters and heartfelt, introspect moments, that are just as important – if not more important – to the story. I don’t want to add any spoilers here, but I’m really happy with the progress this novel made on all fronts. To be fair though, the entire story could have ended here and the third book wouldn’t have been necessary. That was a choice, and I can respect that though. Did it make 100% sense? Not really. But I’m curious to explore more of this world and find out what the third and final installment has to offer.