Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
Quick disclaimer/background note: I haven't read the Serpent & Dove series that precedes this (nor do I ever intend to) and it is not a necessary prerequisite for this book. The only reason to read S&D first would be to avoid spoilers, since this book picks up just after its ending.
All of this book's problems comes down to the same one thing: the absence of any substance whatsoever. Everything is superficial, everything is an aesthetic, nothing has any depth.
This review could stop here, but for the sake of demonstration + because I had to read this for a book club and now need catharsis, below is some further explanation of the oxymoronically abysmal shallowness of this book.
So, we have characters as old as time who barely behave like mature adults (centuries old vampire royalty who somehow care about the birthday of that not especially bright girl they keep hostage? Did you hear my eyes roll?). We have professional monster hunters, self-cutting blood witches and self-sacrificing white witches, royalty and all sorts of other kinds of leadership, and many races of intelligent monsters. We also have a lot of French in there and one of the vampire speaks Czech at some point, so there are different nationalities and cultures in this world. There is so much to work with here... but instead everyone acts basically the same. This could all be happening to a bunch of suburban teenagers in the U.S. around Halloween, carved pumpkins and all. Again, it's all just for aesthetics. This book can't produce anything deeper than skin-level diversity.
As for the protagonist, she had promising room for growth at the start but it was quickly squandered for more meaningless fluff and the needs of a meandering plot. In the end, she keeps repeating the same mistakes, and she sounds dumber with each chapter (and there are a lot of them!). Which is almost comically highlighted by what her great strengths as a character are supposed to be:
* First, while having neither power nor any physical abilities, she supposedly is someone who thinks and does her research.
Through the whole story, there is only one scene where she finds a book. The book happens to be a textbook on the very thing she is then trying to investigate. Guess what she does? She proceeds to NOT read it, just haphazardly try random things until something works, and then ultimately ask others to explain the why to her later. Such a great mind, indeed.
Meanwhile, her love interest keeps doing some extreme squinting and cherry picking at the facts when recounting to others who were not there what just happened (on page) in a way that puts her actions in a light of capability. Are we, as the readers, also supposed to somehow believe his highly edited tale instead of what we just read?
But in all fairness, this produces the only depth to be found in this book: an unintentional reflection on the narrative construction of reality.
* Second, another redeeming trait of hers should be that she always perseveres. But since she resolutely keeps making the dumbest choices, her determination soon reads more and more like childish petulance and stubbornness, than anything else.
In short, she is useless - at every turn, in all and every respect. When she seems to have a mental breakthrough, a scene promptly follows where she thoroughly demonstrates she's in fact learned nothing, then she has to be rescued or propped up or both by her daddy-issue of a love interest.
Speaking of, we have the good ol' power imbalance romance bingo: old sensual vampire patronizingly guiding our virgin ingenue with the IQ of an oyster, so she can realize some supposed potential buried deep in there, like the prize show pet that she is. So romantic.
Plot? Sprinkled with all the lazy YA tropes possible along the way, of course.
There is also kind of a mystery element to it, I guess, though the protagonists keep making wildly random conclusions or even change their mind about what the clues might mean from one convo to the next, because of (you guessed it) shallow reasoning. It could have been frustrating, but by that point I didn't have any more care left anyway.
Oh and one last thing: such a dreadful lack of class. Be it in characters' interactions, scenes of growth for the MC, masquerade costumes, action scenes... anything and everything is somehow the trashy version of itself (when it is clearly written to be a cool or impactful moment).
So.
A shallow and formulaic YA.
Writing is seriously not the worst part of this - very repetitive, but fine mostly. But the content is just... how old is the author?
All of this book's problems comes down to the same one thing: the absence of any substance whatsoever. Everything is superficial, everything is an aesthetic, nothing has any depth.
This review could stop here, but for the sake of demonstration + because I had to read this for a book club and now need catharsis, below is some further explanation of the oxymoronically abysmal shallowness of this book.
So, we have characters as old as time who barely behave like mature adults (centuries old vampire royalty who somehow care about the birthday of that not especially bright girl they keep hostage? Did you hear my eyes roll?). We have professional monster hunters, self-cutting blood witches and self-sacrificing white witches, royalty and all sorts of other kinds of leadership, and many races of intelligent monsters. We also have a lot of French in there and one of the vampire speaks Czech at some point, so there are different nationalities and cultures in this world. There is so much to work with here... but instead everyone acts basically the same. This could all be happening to a bunch of suburban teenagers in the U.S. around Halloween, carved pumpkins and all. Again, it's all just for aesthetics. This book can't produce anything deeper than skin-level diversity.
As for the protagonist, she had promising room for growth at the start but it was quickly squandered for more meaningless fluff and the needs of a meandering plot. In the end, she keeps repeating the same mistakes, and she sounds dumber with each chapter (and there are a lot of them!). Which is almost comically highlighted by what her great strengths as a character are supposed to be:
* First, while having neither power nor any physical abilities, she supposedly is someone who thinks and does her research.
Through the whole story, there is only one scene where she finds a book. The book happens to be a textbook on the very thing she is then trying to investigate. Guess what she does? She proceeds to NOT read it, just haphazardly try random things until something works, and then ultimately ask others to explain the why to her later. Such a great mind, indeed.
Meanwhile, her love interest keeps doing some extreme squinting and cherry picking at the facts when recounting to others who were not there what just happened (on page) in a way that puts her actions in a light of capability. Are we, as the readers, also supposed to somehow believe his highly edited tale instead of what we just read?
But in all fairness, this produces the only depth to be found in this book: an unintentional reflection on the narrative construction of reality.
* Second, another redeeming trait of hers should be that she always perseveres. But since she resolutely keeps making the dumbest choices, her determination soon reads more and more like childish petulance and stubbornness, than anything else.
In short, she is useless - at every turn, in all and every respect. When she seems to have a mental breakthrough, a scene promptly follows where she thoroughly demonstrates she's in fact learned nothing, then she has to be rescued or propped up or both by her daddy-issue of a love interest.
Speaking of, we have the good ol' power imbalance romance bingo: old sensual vampire patronizingly guiding our virgin ingenue with the IQ of an oyster, so she can realize some supposed potential buried deep in there, like the prize show pet that she is. So romantic.
Plot? Sprinkled with all the lazy YA tropes possible along the way, of course.
There is also kind of a mystery element to it, I guess, though the protagonists keep making wildly random conclusions or even change their mind about what the clues might mean from one convo to the next, because of (you guessed it) shallow reasoning. It could have been frustrating, but by that point I didn't have any more care left anyway.
Oh and one last thing: such a dreadful lack of class. Be it in characters' interactions, scenes of growth for the MC, masquerade costumes, action scenes... anything and everything is somehow the trashy version of itself (when it is clearly written to be a cool or impactful moment).
So.
A shallow and formulaic YA.
Writing is seriously not the worst part of this - very repetitive, but fine mostly. But the content is just... how old is the author?
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
I. Am. OBSESSED. I loveddddd the Serpent & Dove series. I listened to it on audiobook and it was incredibly captivating, so when I stumbled upon a spin-off, I HAD to read it. Going in, I thought it was going to be much more “glory to the old main characters”, but it wasn’t and I’m SO glad. Célie’s character development is absolutely beautiful throughout this book. She went from a side character I didn’t really relate to at all to suddenly understanding her soul-deep. Slow burn? Check. Vampires? Check. Forced proximity? Check. Twists? Turns? CLIFFHANGER??? Check check CHECK. Absolutely SWEATING by the end inhaling the scene, only to turn the page and realize I’ve reaching the end
I. Am. OBSESSED. I loveddddd the Serpent & Dove series. I listened to it on audiobook and it was incredibly captivating, so when I stumbled upon a spin-off, I HAD to read it. Going in, I thought it was going to be much more “glory to the old main characters”, but it wasn’t and I’m SO glad. Célie’s character development is absolutely beautiful throughout this book. She went from a side character I didn’t really relate to at all to suddenly understanding her soul-deep. Slow burn? Check. Vampires? Check. Forced proximity? Check. Twists? Turns? CLIFFHANGER??? Check check CHECK. Absolutely SWEATING by the end inhaling the scene, only to turn the page and realize I’ve reaching the end
Wow, I am absolutely in love with this book. I cannot wait to read the second one (if it comes out)! Thank you for continuing on in the same universe as Reed and Lou! It was a pleasant surprise!
i think i can easily conclude that i still prefer vampires over witches. mind you, i do love witches but i always had an obsession with those blood suckers ever since middle school. it definitely started out with twilight and then the vampire diaries carries on... specifically the originals (the mikealson's family will always slay)
the scarlet veil has all the fall spooky vibes you need to experience autumn to the max. i've read shelby's first trilogy (not the final book tho...) and i did enjoy it. i truly had fun with the characters but it had been so long that i didn't remember much of the plot from those previous books. however, it did not hinder my reading experience. actually, i do think that it will enhance your reading if you read the serpent & dove trilogy first but i don't think it's necessary to understand the world and its creatures. we're introduced to célie tremblay who's the first lady to take the vow and become part of the chasseur crew. they hunt witches and other dangerous creatures. however, her place is often questioned by her brethen and her fiancé & captain of the crew, Jean-Luc, wants to protect her at all costs. he doesn't think she's strong enough to be part of every missions or secret investigations.
new dead bodies are turning up. no link between each victim other than the fact that they are not human. when célie learns about this plot after finding one body - her late friend- she's determined to help her fiancé and her friends (lou, reid, coco, beau, etc) to find the killer. along the way she's kidnapped by vampires and brought into their secret island where she's locked in that haunted castle owned by the king of vampires, michal vasiliev. he thinks she's the key to finding the killer since he took his little sister away from him and he wants retribution.
i honestly got the best gothic romance vibes from this book. the description, the setting, the characters made me feel like i was also living in that castle. i loved michal, our grumpy cold-hearted vampire and his cousins, odessa & dimitri. i also loved that célie has the ability to communicate with the ghosts in the castle. it was truly such a fun read for fall. i knew that it was only the first book in a duology so i kinda expected the cliffhanger.
i can't wait to see what shelby has in store for us in the sequel and final book.
TROPES :
- enemies-to-lovers
- slowburn
- haunted castle
- only one coffin
- angsty banter
- a talking cat
- soft heroine
- "if anyone touches/harm you, they die" energy
- a villain love interest (vampire) -> klaus mikaelson energy
- a masquerade ball
rating: 4 bloody stars.
thank you again to HCC Frency & HarperCollins Canada for sending me an e-arc of this book <3
the scarlet veil has all the fall spooky vibes you need to experience autumn to the max. i've read shelby's first trilogy (not the final book tho...) and i did enjoy it. i truly had fun with the characters but it had been so long that i didn't remember much of the plot from those previous books. however, it did not hinder my reading experience. actually, i do think that it will enhance your reading if you read the serpent & dove trilogy first but i don't think it's necessary to understand the world and its creatures. we're introduced to célie tremblay who's the first lady to take the vow and become part of the chasseur crew. they hunt witches and other dangerous creatures. however, her place is often questioned by her brethen and her fiancé & captain of the crew, Jean-Luc, wants to protect her at all costs. he doesn't think she's strong enough to be part of every missions or secret investigations.
new dead bodies are turning up. no link between each victim other than the fact that they are not human. when célie learns about this plot after finding one body - her late friend- she's determined to help her fiancé and her friends (lou, reid, coco, beau, etc) to find the killer. along the way she's kidnapped by vampires and brought into their secret island where she's locked in that haunted castle owned by the king of vampires, michal vasiliev. he thinks she's the key to finding the killer since he took his little sister away from him and he wants retribution.
i honestly got the best gothic romance vibes from this book. the description, the setting, the characters made me feel like i was also living in that castle. i loved michal, our grumpy cold-hearted vampire and his cousins, odessa & dimitri. i also loved that célie has the ability to communicate with the ghosts in the castle. it was truly such a fun read for fall. i knew that it was only the first book in a duology so i kinda expected the cliffhanger.
i can't wait to see what shelby has in store for us in the sequel and final book.
TROPES :
- enemies-to-lovers
- slowburn
- haunted castle
- only one coffin
- angsty banter
- a talking cat
- soft heroine
- "if anyone touches/harm you, they die" energy
- a villain love interest (vampire) -> klaus mikaelson energy
- a masquerade ball
rating: 4 bloody stars.
thank you again to HCC Frency & HarperCollins Canada for sending me an e-arc of this book <3
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
The way the MFC pissed me off SO MUCH. GOD I've never read such an annoying main character EVER. I wanted to rip my hair out any time there was a conversation longer than two pages. I ONLY finished this book out of respect to the prequel series. And that's the only reason I might consider reading the second. Honestly I would save yourself some time and skip this.
I actually give this 4.5⭐️
Ok so I’m upset about the cliffhanger but I’m happy Michal turned Célie, I’m not gonna lie because I was waiting for it the entire book lol.
Anyway, I can definitely see why some may not have liked this book as much if they didn’t read the Serpent & Dove series. I feel like reading that gives more context to Celie’s character and some background that is clearly left out.
I actually really enjoyed this book! More so than I did Serpent & Dove. If you’re looking for spice though, you’ll be disappointed. I will say I do think the author still struggles a little bit with relationship pacing but it was definitely better in this series than it was S&D. However I thought Célie’s character growth was done well!
I’m sad because I felt like it was really picking up at the end and now I just need more like right now lol.
Ok so I’m upset about the cliffhanger but I’m happy Michal turned Célie, I’m not gonna lie because I was waiting for it the entire book lol.
Anyway, I can definitely see why some may not have liked this book as much if they didn’t read the Serpent & Dove series. I feel like reading that gives more context to Celie’s character and some background that is clearly left out.
I actually really enjoyed this book! More so than I did Serpent & Dove. If you’re looking for spice though, you’ll be disappointed. I will say I do think the author still struggles a little bit with relationship pacing but it was definitely better in this series than it was S&D. However I thought Célie’s character growth was done well!
I’m sad because I felt like it was really picking up at the end and now I just need more like right now lol.