Review: Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin

Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review.  This book comes out tomorrow, September 3, 2019.

This started out a bit slow for me pacing wise, but the story was interesting so I stuck with it. I'm glad I did because it picks up at around the 40% mark and keeps going from there. I will say I did not appreciate the cliffhanger at the end, but I am very much looking forward to the next book!

This book has a bit of everything magic, witches, religious persecution, action, romance, drama, and friendship. I really enjoyed it and felt it was well crafted and entertaining. It follows Louise, a very rough thief happens to be a witch in hiding. Witches are hunted by the church and burned at the stake. The Archbishop leads the charge against witches and witchcraft claiming they are demons and must be rid from the world. His protege Captain Reid Diggory is very pious and successful Chasseur, aka witch hunter. Reid crosses patch with Lou several times before they find themselves married to save Reid and the church from an embarrassing situation. Lou must hide her true identity even closer because she will surely burn if they find out a witch is living in church.

As you can imaging Reid and Lou develop a hate to love relationship. While they are figuring out their situation, Lou is not only hiding her identity from her new husband she is also hiding from her mother. Her mother happens to be the head of the witch coven that is trying to take down the church and the royal family, but she needs Lou to do it. Lou has to decide if she can trust Reid with her secret in order to protect herself or if she can continue hiding under his nose and hope her mother doesn't find her.

In addition to her budding romance, Lou has a great best friend in Coco, another witch in hiding. She is a a blood witch while Lou sees patterns of magic and her magic requires some sort of sacrifice to keep the balance. Coco and Lou have a great friendship and I hope we get a bit more of Coco's backstory in the next book. Lou also develops an unlikely friend in Ansel, a Chasseur in training and her personal guard. In the end, Lou will need all of her allies and convince them that most witches are just regular people if she is going to survive her mother's plans and not find herself burning at the stake.

Overall, I really enjoyed this and I'm looking forward to the next book. This fantasy is heavier on the romance. I like the magic system and ended up really loving the characters.

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