Photo credits: Gordon Johnson (pixabay), GDJ (pixabay), adrienolichon-6395415 (pexels) Edited by Vaishali Title: Serpent and Dove Author: Shelby Mahurin Series: Serpent and Dove #1 Publisher: Harper Teen Year of Publication: 2019 Format: PAPERBACK copy Genre/Themes: YA/NA Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction, Fantasy Romance, Witches Vs Orthodoxy, War, Paranormal, Magic, Opposites attract ISBN: 978-0-06-287803-8 Review... 'For just a moment, I'd forgotten why I was here. Who I was. Who he was. A witch and a witch hunter bound in holy matrimony. There was only one way such a story could end - a stake and a match.' P245 "I make it my business to know the business of my enemies, monsieur." She rose gracefully to her feet, and he stumbled back half a step. "As they are now also your enemies, I must offer a piece of advice: 'tis dangerous to meddle in the affairs of witches. Forget your vengeance. Forget everything you've learned about this world of shadows and magic. You are wildly outmatched and woefully inadequate in the face of these women. Death is the kindest of their torments - a gift bestowed only to those who have earned it..." P14 This well-popularised book and I finally meet, and although I'm still attempting to underpin the suggestive relevance of the title (the juxtaposition between Lou and Reid as comprehensive opposites?), I'm here to share that this NA witchcraft-inspired fantasy is absolutely a merit to its creative mileage, its excellent craftsmanship and its ability to beget brilliance. I say all this and I hadn't even known it was the writer's debut. And if this is Shelby Mahurin's first conventional publish, then I'm restless to explore her talent as it yields to maturity. Clearly an intriguing orchestrator of fantasy fiction (and romantic tension), I'm deeply thrilled by the entertaining welcome and wouldn't waste a breath before picking up another book by the author. In the space of themes, threads, relationships, interactions, character conflicts and concepts, this refreshing opener easily finds kindred kind to its every other well-established book in this sweet spot genre we call Fantasy Romance (a division that's hurriedly becoming a mega favourite of mine). We have a fresh setting in what I picked up to be a French-inspired scene (though It did feel ambiguous), which I can personally say I haven't experienced in the stomping ground of Fantasy Fiction before. I appreciated the originality. Secondly, despite my non-committal stance for witchcraft-influenced novels, I enjoyed the witch Vs the orthodoxy debacle. It extrapolated that very us vs. them antipathy between humankind and witch-kind in that way of traditional antagonism, and the author played to the best of its authority in the conflict it posed both between our two love birds (or snake and dove?) and as a plot conflict that weaponises belief systems and long lived histories against each other. This opener excellently depicts the finer tastes of fear, fanaticism and faith with a complex, balanced delicacy that empowers the subtle transformations. But believe me, with those big themes, the story eschews the concept of abandoning its inherent wit. The characterisation and the character development highlighted another well-developed face of the building narrative; the very faithful, contained and noble Reid, sworn fealty to the institution of the Church. Born and bred by the holy script, he breathes the indoctrinated teachings that preach death, doom and demise to all witch-kind. Witchcraft perceived as purely, incontrovertibly criminal and Reid's the unbending follower to his religious rearing. And, oh dear, he's faced with the ethical conflict and moral dilemma of courting his enemy (unbeknownst to him) as a devout worshipper of canonical establishment. Can he be both? As is blatant? not in the world they live in. I do think that both the world building and the magical system could have used a more established elegance. But with what the author has set in motion, there was definitely enough of both to anchor the story's stream of events. We have a magical structure that's an elemental guidance system, one that leans more toward the intuitive, its laws governed by a karmic give and take for the Dames Blanches. I did hope for a more examined sense of worldbuilding but what was delivered in setting really ignited a sense of 'place' and atmosphere enough to call me impressed by the fiction built. And here I come to what made this book for me and I have to tell you that it was none other than this brass, audacious and truly charismatic heroine that blessed this book with its unholy dynamism. Lou was brilliant as Serpent and Dove's heroine, an appropriately inappropriate manifestation of a very readable leading lady. I liked a lot about this book, but Lou? I liked Lou the most. She held her place in this story without an ounce of chagrin, like it was an indignity to exist in any other way. She was ebullient, unapologetic, with a wit and zest that animated the gusto of her attitude in life. It's hard, her life has been hard, but her approach sways with a brilliant enthusiasm and a pleasurable fullness in spite of her deepest fears and vulnerabilities. All while she's more or less footloose with the ways of vagabondism. She was great. Great, I tell you. I'd also tell you to read this book just for her. In the true words of her dear friend, 'she has balls the size of boulders'. She played the role as Lou would; with an indecorous thrill and an unabashed bearing, and that really made for some fun moments and a fun pairing with a conservative Reid. She was just as vulnerable in the same depth, which was highlighted especially in the second half of the story as her inner fight dwindles. I do have to say that the story lost its initial draw to a woebegone energy come the latter part. Understandable that Lou becomes quite browbeaten after the rejection and after facing her worst nightmare in the form of Morgane, but it's worth mentioning that the second part did play to a different tone. As much as I wax quite the poetry of Mahurin's girl, I also have to tell you that her boy's the love interest that couldn't be more Lou's opposite. It made for a controversial and challenging pairing storyline-wise, but a fun one for those of us who favour the opposites attract trope. And we can only appreciate Reid as the chosen love interest for that. Where we're often steamrolled with variants of the cocky, arrogant and overconfident male protagonist, Reid was the antithesis to that. Conservative, virtuous, righteous, uncorrupted (if you can discount his ingrained beliefs), loathes the vulgarity of profanity (so you can imagine just what he thinks of a potty-mouthed Lou) but still cuts a stubbornly imposing figure in leadership. And you know, you might not want to refuse the possibility of having his very large body by your side during any given endeavour, not that Lou actually needs it. His ignorance is borne from not knowing any better and In refusing to entertain another possibility, any other reality. That's, of course, how indoctrination works. Like I said,he pushed into a course correction that could do nothing but force a remaking of him, and I think the author was quite tactful in the way that came to pass particularly. I was dreading that moment, but I also knew it was inevitable. Very tactful were the interrelations overall. How can two peoples find coalition if two people can't sit and play nice; that's what we had with Reid and Lou, they centralised that conflict. Ried has a lot to learn, a lot to overcome, and ultimately a lot to leave behind, and Lou's practically the fumbling, cackling shock-of-the-new that brings it all to pass simply for her existence. It was entertaining to see his initial perception of Lou as a colossal offense and a wretched criminal to him, his pride and his very principles and have that metamorphose into someone who influences him in unexpected ways. As he later shares 'I've never seen anyone savour anything the way you do everything. You make me feel alive. Just being in your presence - it's addictive. You're addictive. It doesn't matter you're a witch. The way you see the world...I want to see it that way too.' And if that isn't the sweet turnaround of turnarounds for a man who wouldn't have batted even a russet eyelash at the burning of a witch in pure vengeance then I won't subsequently read the entire trilogy. I will, just to share, but It's worth mentioning that it could also be said that the author elasticated the content and the romance to within an inch of snapping. Since I personally felt that the developments had been stretched out once I came to the book's end, I do hope the sequel can push forth with something fresh and original. Another angle that I really enjoyed was the romantic tension, probably moreso than the romantic relationship itself even. It felt very well judged and tactful, but mostly I loved the enemies to lovers exchanges between the two of them. Even as witty, misbehaving Lou was my unicorn, I thoroughly relished the thorny back and forth that was the relationship between them both. My favourite interactions were those that included the both of them in the same room together for that very reason. The banter was fun and I waited just to see what Lou would do (or rather, say) next, how she'd chafe Reid's sensibilities. It was a fun time since I wasn't sure how to feel about our dear Chass to begin with. I'm not too eager to enthuse over a man of devout religion whose rigidity imperils his sense of truth and clarity, but paired with an enterprising, charmingly unashamed Lou I started to appreciate him, how he might evolve and where his own arc would take him. Reid does have the most character development I will say. His beliefs uncontested throughout his entire life and it's not a smooth ride to have his deepest sense of identity and slated future confronted by the truth and disputed by all he hadn't known. Or even wanted to know. The conflict traces a very important point: will his feelings for Lou be enough to kill his hate? But moving on to the fictional witch community, I did have some trouble with the one-sized perspective that befits the entire community that was the Dames Blanches. It would have been nice to see some diversity in intention between their particular casted community. We might all agree that one entire sect of people can't be brandished with the same brush, no matter how beguiling and Influential their ruler. Besides Lou, Madame Labelle was the only other witch who'd rebelled the cause. I understand that Morgane held an unfathomable influence over them, but it didn't ring true to believe an unbroken horde of people - an entire population - would follow just for the sake of vengeance and justice. I did like the somewhat unbiased depiction of culpability on both sides of the wider conflict; how it reached such a state that both sides are complicit in death and destruction, that neither the witches nor the Church can be considered blameless, both mercilessly gunning for the other. Though If you were to pick a side, one might say that the witches were wronged, not that Morgane should be anything close to a leader, and I'm certainly not averse to what was fated for the Archbishop. He was despicable and unlikeable from the start, and created an entire cult of killers and spearheaded a rampage of merciless warfare just to validate his own pain and cover up his secrets. Let's just say I wasn't sorry to see what happened to him. When young Lou situates herself in quite the catastrophe by gathering the notice of a witch hunter, all takes a rather sordid tumble from there, literally and figuratively. But if Lou knows anything, it's how to perform, no matter the threat. And she is threatened. Lou has done her utmost to idle in the shadows and quell the stem of her magic because any show of it could mean a painful death by fire. But where there's disaster, there's also opportunity. Chancing the greatest risk of discovery by safeguarding herself in a glorified den of witchhunters, she finds a new home in the Church, the very place that houses her long-lived enemies. With little choice but to join in nuptials with a witch hunter, Reid's all she has, and only he stands between her and an immediate burning. But as Belterra's finest, Reid's in service to the crown as a protector against humankind's ancient enemy, the witches. And no matter the danger, Lou sees the advantage in marriage to an enemy loyalist. Magic and mayhem, a great division, a suspenseful plot, an enemies to lovers partnership, imaginable world aesthetic, doomed love, a war of the land, bloodlust, a stolen homeland and Serpent and Dove puts its best (and wittiest) foot forward over an elevated scythe of fear that our serpent and dove will have to face in hidden sight, whether that includes a stake and match as the blurb suggests, you'll enjoy the push there. With a witch who harbours a craveable, unshakeable spirit that rarely banks and one who delights in everything that comes with a wicked sense of humour and a bold way of being, this mouthy heroine emerges with a delightfully characterful mischief as she's bound to a witch hunter full of fidelity, prejudice and holy fury. A well-executed world view that tactfully articulates the positions and nuances of faith, fear, belief, freedoms and dictatorship through the delineation of witch and witchunter. Will love be enough to breach the belief of the one she loves? Or will the poisoned teachings of a holy zealot outmatch what our male protagonist thought he believed? A blood feud, with hundreds of years worth of history and hundreds of years in the making and I'm excited to see how the sequel matches up. And I desperately hope the fun stays alive! I gave this book 4/4.5 stars - |
VaishaliBorn in the UK Archives
February 2024
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