✨ A ✨ 's Reviews > Blood & Honey

Me? *glances around; points at self* Oh I'm total fine after that ending. And by “totally fine” I mean: NOT AT ALL.

“And when everything is a matter of life and death for us, the stakes are higher. The more we gain, the more we lose.”

⚠️ Do not read this review if you have not read Serpent and Dove (Book 1) ⚠️ Other than that there are no other spoilers in this review.

Lou, Reid and Co. have just made it out of Chatteau alive. Just barely.

Enemies are close and they are being hunted from all angles. What they need is allies. But no one is willing to partner up with the daughter of La Dame des Sorcières and her husband, the former captain of the Chasseurs.

While running from their enemies, and seeking allies: Lou and Reid are also running from the things that haunt them. Reid's new found power, the death of his patriarch, Lou almost being murdered by her own mother (again) — to name a few.

“There is nothing comfortable about our situation. This sort of magic—the sort that balances life and death on a knife point—requires sacrifice. Nature demands balance.”

Advice: please reread S&D before starting this book. It will be highly confusing because we jump straight into the story with no explanation. And until publishers normalise recaps at the beginning of books (hint hint) it's up to us to refresh our memories.



Here's what I loved:

• it had the same addictive writing
• heart warming friendships that melted my heart
• more cute banter
• great character development
• introduction of Blood witches!
• werewolves (!!!)
• new and awesome characters, also a travelling troupe!!
• we learn more about the magic system


I truly enjoyed reading this. It was fun and the character development was great.

Though Lou and Reid's relationship issues did start to bother me after a while - even though it really did make sense and I get that they both have things to deal with - I just wanted them to be okay with each other. ((But maybe that's because I want them to be happy so badly.)) There were times I wanted to scream at them: COMMUNICATION IS KEYY GUYS

Coco and Ansel are as always: my favourite munchkins. And I even started to like Beau more. To be honest I found his addition to the crew in Serpent and Dove to be somewhat random. But he's grown on me.


When it was announced that Serpent and Dove will no longer be a duology (like we were all lead to believe) some people were ecstatic. (Yes! That means we get more of this beautiful story and these awesome characters! What's not to love? Right? )

However, this also means that they are purposefully stretching out a story that does not need to be stretched out. I love me a trilogy — but some stories do not require that extra book. Because then we end up with the dreaded Second Book Curse. You know what I'm talking about.

The one where basically nothing happens. The filler book.

Alas, this was the case with Blood and Honey.


Like I said: I enjoyed this book. It has many of the elements that I loved from Serpent and Dove. But when I look back at the book as a whole — I realise that nothing much happened to move the plot along and our characters are basically where they began.

What I'm pointing out will not bother people who will read this book in a few years time, when they can binge all the books in one go. But right now, where I'm sitting, it's highly frustrating knowing that once again we're waiting for the next book when this book hardly did anything to satiate us.

*sigh*

Towards the end things started to pick up and get even more interesting. The ending was........ *stares into camera*

I really can't talk about it without getting upset. So I'll just leave it at that.

I hope no one is dissuaded from reading this book. I don't even know how to put into exact words that I loved this buuuut felt like it wasn't necessary. My hopes for the last book is that it makes up for this one. This is still one of my favourite series and I think Shelby will step up her game and blow us away.

Rating: 3.5 stars

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Pre-Read

July 2019
Somewhere in an alternate universe there is a Me with a copy of this book in her hand. She's a lucky bitch.


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My reviews of:
Book 1 - Serpent and Dove
Book 3 - Untitled (pre-review thoughts)