Blood & Honey // A Whole Lot of … Not Much?

Author: Shelby Mahurin
Published On: Sept. 1st, 2020
Publisher: HarperTeen
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Romance
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Synopsis:

After narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Dames Blanches, Lou, Reid, Coco, and Ansel are on the run from coven, kingdom, and church—fugitives with nowhere to hide.

To elude the scores of witches and throngs of chasseurs at their heels, Lou and Reid need allies. Strong ones. But protection comes at a price, and the group is forced to embark on separate quests to build their forces. As Lou and Reid try to close the widening rift between them, the dastardly Morgane baits them in a lethal game of cat and mouse that threatens to destroy something worth more than any coven.

Hello! Me again. You might have though I’d disappeared forever, given that I haven’t been around much on the blog. But nope, here I am!

I’ve been trying to get back into my reading grind, especially with so many awesome books being released recently. One of said books, which I just finished an hour ago, is the sequel to Serpent & Dove: Blood & Honey.

This book took me a bit longer to read than I anticipated. I traveled for work, so I listed to a good chunk of this on audiobook while driving. However, I definitely didn’t fly through it like I anticipated.

*There will be spoilers from Serpent & Dove, so tread with care if you haven’t read it!*

• The cover: Okay okay, this isn’t super relevant to the actual story, but damn is this cover absolutely stunning. The red and the gold? I’m so in love with it. It’s probably one of the prettiest covers I own and I’m so excited for whatever the third book will look like.
• The world-building: I think I probably mentioned this in the first book as well, but this story is set in such a unique universe that I just love exploring further. Like we have a monarchy, we have semi-evil (or maybe just misguided?) hunters/protectors of the kingdom, we have witches (TWO kinds!), we have werewolves and mythical creatures and sorta-almost vampires and just so much more? Like it’s just such a neat world that Shelby has created and I love getting to explore the dynamic within it.
• Lou doing what needs to be done: I’m also going to talk about this below, but I really respected how Lou stepped up and made the hard choices when nobody else would. I actually found myself screaming “YAS, Baddie!!!” while listening to this in my car. I just love how she’s such a badass and gets. shit. done!!
• Beau: Was totally a spoiled, entitled asshole in Book 1. During the times that he was actually present, which amounted to, like, 3% of the whole book. We get a lot more time with him in this one, and I ended up really enjoying his chaos! I hope we explore more of him and his relationships with the others and his family in Book 3.

(This might get kinda messy because I’m horrible at explaining things, but bear with me.)

• Lou & Reid: Sigh. I loved their dynamic in Book 1. I thought Shelby did an excellent job at building tension and forming a connection in a genuine way despite the conflict between them. This book just felt so….messy in that regard? Like we spent a WHOLE. ass. book!!! dealing with their differences during Serpent & Dove, so you’d hope that the sequel would be about them growing together. It’s not. It’s about them fighting, and pushing each other, and basically hating each others guts while still claiming they love each other. Like they both don’t trust or respect the other because of magic and it’s just so frustrating to read.
• Reid rejecting magic STILL: So, Reid has magic. Neat! Let’s explore that. Oh wait, I forgot that he’s still a Chasseur who has extreme internal prejudice against magic and anyone who wields it. Let’s watch him reject everything to do with his magic and instead resent Lou for using hers, even though it’s saved their asses on more than one occasion! Ugh. He made me so mad at points that I wanted to throw the whole book out.
• Boy blames girl for making hard choices for the greater good: A trope that has consistently had me screaming in frustrating.
• WE COULD’VE HAD SO MUCH GROWTH!!! We could’ve watched Lou and Reid grow into their powers together and truly open up to love each other as they are, we could’ve seen Reid grieve the relationship he had with the Archbishop and begin to know his family in Madame Labelle and Beau, we could’ve finally been excited about Coco and Ansel/Beau/literally anyone forming a relationship. All of these things would’ve set me up to be really excited about the powerful team we have going into Book 3, but none of them happened.
• Which leads me to…I’m frustrated with the ending and not excited about the next book. I just don’t trust that our characters and their relationships with each other are strong enough to get through what’s to come. You know when you read a trilogy and shit goes down but by the end of the second book you have this really strong sense of “hell yeah, we got this”? Because I have the complete opposite of that.

In the end, I just felt that this book was filler to get us to the next one. I’ve seen people say that this could’ve and should’ve been a duology, and I think I agree. It just…wasn’t necessary.

That being said, Mahurin does have a really compelling writing style and I am glad I picked this up. If you were a fan of Serpent & Dove, I feel like you’ll either really love this for the fact that we’re back with our MC’s, or you’ll be disappointed in it’s content.

Rating:

Have you read Blood & Honey yet? What did you think? Agree/disagree with anything I’ve said here?

Thanks, loves!!