Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - Serpent & Dove

Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin

36 reviews

justcallmeemily's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

bzliz's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Can a witch and a witch hunter fall in love? Louise aka Lou has been on the run for a few years, doing whatever it takes to survive, though she never could have dreamed her survival meant marrying someone hellbent on destroying her and her kin. Reid was raised to believe in the wickedness of witches and to bring about their destruction above all else. His sense of righteousness leads him into a marriage with Lou despite his condemnation of her criminal ways.

The book is well paced and establishes stakes early on while continuing to drop bits of lore along the way to keep readers hooked. Lou is an endearing scamp and Reid is a very good boy learning that the world isn’t necessarily what he thought. They both grow to understand each other’s point of view as their relationship develops. A very fun read despite one of my least favorite tropes- closing out the book with a lead-in to the next which the audience has no context for but it feels like it’s supposed to be a mic drop moment.

Content Warnings

kimmag92's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I went into Serpent & Dove not knowing much about the plot and I was pleasantly surprised. I wasn't expecting a vaguely 1700s French witch hunting book that is also a critique of Christian ideology but I'm here for it. Overall, I enjoyed this book especially Lou and Coco. I would have liked to see more build up to the romantic portion of Lou and Reid's relationship. I knew as soon as Reid was introduced he was our love interest but the shift from Lou and Reid barely tolerating each other to "I love you" still felt sudden and not well explained.

I do think Serpent & Dove falls into the category of YA that is written for adults and not teens as the characters late teen ages don't matter to the story. For much of the book they read much older and I think had the author aged up the characters to their mid-20s and marketed it as adult fantasy the story would have worked much better.

Content Warnings

karelidz's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

It was... quite unexpected, in a nice suprise type of way.
I bought this back in November and basically just knew it had an arranged marriage trope, so I went into it kinda blind, which was nice, and I really quite enjoyed it.
It took me a while to really understand and differentiate between both pov's, but once I got it, I was good to go. I really liked Lou's pov's a bit better.

Also, judging by the cover and title I kinda expected it to be spicy, but it actually wasn't? I'm not mad about it tho, I really enjoyed the plot without it.
This is one of those books where I want to keep being inside the world even after I finished it, so I'll read the next one, but I'm a bit scared to see where the plot goes, idk where it'll go but I guess I'll find out.

Content Warnings

makmo722's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Great story! Magical powers, enemies to lovers, true friends, and a change of heart. A truly wonderful read. *It did take a while to finish this book. Until around 325 pages, I couldn’t put it down. Then the pace slowed down as the author tied the story up into a nice ending, which as just as fun to read but took more effort on my part to stay focused. *

Content Warnings