Buy:  Amazon  |  Paperback  |  Audio

---

---

Review

“What you are now is not what you’ve always been, nor is it what you always will be.”

3 stars

Following on from the epic fantasy story that began in Serpent & Dove, I was really excited to dive in to this book, the continued story of witch Lou and now-ex-soldier Reid in a wonderfully developed, interesting and exciting fantasy world.

We pick up the story right where the last book left off and there is pretty much no rehash of characters or events. I was lost for a bit, but as the story went on, I slowly started to remember and things began falling in to place. If, like me, you don’t remember the details, and you have the opportunity to reread the first book before starting this one, I would definitely recommend it.

Lou, Reid and their rag-tag posse are reeling from the events at the end of the last book. Lives have been lost, secrets have been revealed, and they are on the run from the soldiers and witches that hunt them. They are more determined than ever to find and destroy the evil Morgane, but they know they can’t do it alone. So, they set out to find help, confronting their enemies and finding new allies to assist them in their cause. All the while Morgane plays with them from afar, luring them closer to confrontation.

Things are happening, but the story progresses slowly and not all of it seems necessary, and I found myself zoning out from time to time. There are multiple twists and turns, some big developments and surprises along the way – both good and bad (and devastating), but for me, this book seems to be missing the sense of excitement and anticipation that I loved so much about the first book

The romance is there, though there’s drama there with Reid refusing to accept who he is, and Lou embracing the darkness of the magic within her, and keeping secrets from her man. It gets a little tiresome, but I had to remind myself that these characters are really young. They may seem mature, but they’re both still figuring so much out, so I cut them some slack. And in the end, there is some really great progression for them.

“I loved her. And if I had to run, hide, and fight for that love, I would. For the rest of my life, I would.”

The ending brings some excitement, but I’m confused why it all played out the way it did. The whole thing could have ended seemingly so simply… but it didn’t, for ‘reasons’. And then we are thrown this big twist at the end which sends the story off in yet another new direction. I’m curious where it’s going to go and how it’s all going to be resolved, but I’m not as excited about it as I probably should be.

Still a good read, I just didn’t love it. 3 stars.

Note – I listened to this as an audiobook, narrated by Saskia Maarleveld and Holter Graham and. Their ‘normal’ voices are great, and they read with lots of emotion. But when Graham uses accents, he became really hard to understand, either with his quiet grumbly mumbling or his fast-talking cockney accent, which seemed really OTT. And the two narrators use completely different accents for the same character, which I thought was odd.

 

Serpent & Dove series