This is the final Serpent & Dove book, and it’s a monstrous 600 pages. After the last book, Blood & Honey, took more effort than I expected to get through, I was a bit nervous about plowing through this one. I gave Blood and Honey 3 stars out of 5, but thinking about it in retrospect, it’s more of a 2 and a half. But I absolutely loved the first Serpent & Dove, and I’m really happy to say Gods & Monsters brought back a lot of the enjoyment I had from that one.
Lou, Reid, Coco and Beau escaped Morgane and her deathtrap, but one of their closest friends and warriors died and Reid’s disgraced mother was captured by the church. A plan they had went terribly wrong. Especially for Lou, who has been infected and is now controlled by an enchantress named Nicholina. Nicholina in Lou’s body is keeping it secret, and Lou was acting quite weird in the second book as well, so Reid and the others don’t suspect anything…yet. But when they do, what’s to say Lou can be safely brought back? And who’s to say Reid won’t have to sacrifice something of his to do so? And at the end of the day…will they ever beat the Church and Morgane and find peace?
The first book primarily featured Lou as a secret witch getting to know Reid in their forced marriage, and he her. The second book had them and their crew journeying around the country to try and find aid to fight Morgane. And this one has an all new identity of its own with a surprisingly original main idea. I won’t give big spoilers, but let’s just say a lot of this giant book is about either Lou or Reid trying to stop a curse that has descended upon the other. It allows us to bounce between different conflicts in their quest, and as a result, this book justifies being as long as it is, and it’s good at keeping us interested as new things pop up.
My favourite part is the return of a character who died in the second book, but not to the point of cheesy resurrection. I said in an earlier review I would love to take this person out on a date, and it just felt…right having him still have a bit of a role. It reminded me of characters in some of my favourite series that had a sad death and their loved ones who lived on carried out their legacy.
The story also gets to a point where we kind of see another version of Lou and Reid, but it’s not what you probably think. One of my favourite parts of the masterful first Serpent & Dove was how Lou and Reid realistically dislike each other at first, but then both of them slowly realize maybe the other is not the arrogant monster they thought they were, and they see what they can do for one another, and then they confront the stereotypes they believed about the other side for so long. Gods & Monsters has a hint of returning to that concept, and it really drives home the point that the two of them are meant for each other. It was a sweet way to end the series.
The biggest downside I can give is sometimes the descriptions of what is going on get a little overly quirky and distracting, to the point where the mind can wander and we all of a sudden try to get back into what is going on. And by the time the boss battle emerges, I was ready for it all to be over. It can admittedly take a while to read.
But overall, even if Book 2 is noticeably slower, thanks to the bouncy adventure and touching but edgy romance that Gods & Monsters brings, I really recommend the Serpent & Dove trilogy for anyone, teen or adult, looking for a high-stakes horse-carriage fantasy. And I love the song “Big Titty Liddy”. I gotta sing it to my friends at some point. But not strangers. They’ll think I’m a sociopath.
My grade: 3 and a half stars out of five
William J. McGinn 
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