I read the first Serpent & Dove and devoured it. I gave it my highest grade, being one of the most fun reads in ages at the time. But Blood & Honey, despite having many similar elements, struggled to keep my attention the same way.
The last Serpent & Dove was about a secret witch named Lou, who, during a heist-gone-wrong at this palace, ended up engaged to an uptight son of the Archbishop named Reid Diggory, who’s been bred to hate witches and eventually become a Chasseur, or witch hunter. Predictably, Lou’s secret is found out and exposed, but Reid in the end kills his own father so he and Lou can escape, and now the two of them and a merry band of their friends and family – Ansel, Madame Labelle, Beau and Coco – are now hiding in a forest from the mighty church and Chasseurs.
Lou’s mother, Morgane, who’s head of the Witches, is not the Mother Teresa model to them either. She’s taunting them. Getting into their heads. Is an even bigger enemy than Reid’s family, to put it mildly.
The gang gets a notice – a rather suspicious notice at that – that the Archbishop’s funeral is in several days time and Morgane is going to be there. Deciding to take the risk and feeling it’s better than waiting for them to be caught, they go out to try to find recruits for a big takeover attempt. But along the way…there seems to be something off with Lou. She seems to be getting a lot more carefree about her powers and more dismissive towards everybody’s concerns for her. Something might be up.
There have been a fair few times in my life where the second book after the tremendous first one was disappointing and brought the whole series down (The Scorch Trials, Stolen: Heart of Dread, Containment, and Cursed to name a few), and I will admit while Blood & Honey is not as bad as those, this second instalment drags its feet in comparison to the first one. As it does so, it highlights some flaws within the world, primarily its fuzzy stances on magic and the different communities. It could’ve easily shaved off about 80 pages. But I still had enough fun and romance to still recommend this book very fairly.
One of the best parts of the first Serpent & Dove was the hilarious love-hate relationship between Lou and Reid. Lou is willing to play hard-to-get and Reid finds all of her suggestive, joking, and dismissive-towards-the-church tones monumentally unacceptable. It does take a while for them to actually see their humanity. But it gradually did, and it was enormously entertaining somehow, even though this story has been told before a lot. In Blood & Honey, their relationship is somewhat established but beginning to show cracks, but I appreciated that neither of them wanted to just leave each other when the going got a little tough.
Blood & Honey gave me enough to trust and look forward to Gods & Monsters, but I also hope the next instalment has less exposition and more action and fun romance.
3 stars out of 5
William J. McGinn 
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