Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove Series, book 1)

By Shelby Mahurin

Blurb: 
Bound as one to love, honor, or burn.

Two years ago, Louise le Blanc fled her coven and took shelter in the city of Cesarine, forsaking all magic and living off whatever she could steal. There, witches like Lou are hunted. They are feared. And they are burned.

Sworn to the Church as a Chasseur, Reid Diggory has lived his life by one principle: thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. His path was never meant to cross with Lou's, but a wicked stunt forces them into an impossible union—holy matrimony.

The war between witches and Church is an ancient one, and Lou's most dangerous enemies bring a fate worse than fire. Unable to ignore her growing feelings, yet powerless to change what she is, a choice must be made.

And love makes fools of us all.

Review: 
I received this book in a FairyLoot box and it sounded really interesting to read, so I decided to give it a go. I'd heard mixed opinions on this book and was actually quite worried that I would not like the book.

I do like a good book about witches and magic, so felt this book was 100& me. I also liked that it was set in a historic age,and with a french atmosphere to an extent. It felt like the time was set back in the witch hunting days but it had a sort of fantasy of today twist on it which was really nice. I know quite a few people didn't like the french side of it but I felt that the french descriptions and random words throughout this book gave it that bit of character. I obviously understood the french as I know a decent amount of the language, but I know this can be a struggle for people who don't or if English is not their first language then it will potentially just get confusing. 

So this story is sort of like a forced love story to an extent. Louise's (Lou) name is given away at a robbery she is taken part of, which she discovers has been set up. She manages to get away and goes to the attic of a theatre. She then needs the toilet during a performance and bumps into a witch hunter, then they are forced into a marriage.

Lou tries to challenge Captain Diggory at every chance which is quite funny especially some of the things she does, but the best thing about it is he allows himself to get wound up by it. But then slowly over time they start to develop feelings for each other without knowing it. 

Lou also realises the plan of marrying him may not have been her best plan to stay safe because she cannot practice magic around him or have any freedom because he will be able to smell the magic on her until she discovers a secret friend in an area she wasn't supposed to be. This friendship then develops even more and they try to stick up for each other when they fall into trouble.

Ansel another character within this book has a great sense of humour and starts to click on that Coco and Lou are actually witches but he does not drop them in it to anyone because they actually treat him with respect and he still wants them to be his friends. Jean Luc is just a cheeky stubborn, flirty character that tries his hardest with every female that he meets.

Within this book, I feel the characters have developed quite a lot and the friendships between them all start to become more natural and not so forced. Things start to relax within the book and the writing style seems to flow a lot better, not sure if this is because the story started to develop and we were starting to get a bit more background information on the main characters.

I also loved that within this book there was a few twists which kept you guessing and especially made you shocked when you discovered the truth.

I feel the ending of this book was complete but I want to know what happens next and I'm slightly upset that I have to wait a year to discover this but I think it'll be worth it. I just wonder where the story will go from now, because I don't really think much more could happen but we will see.

I don't want to go into too much detail about this book because if I start mentioning certain characters then things will get spoiled but I can tell you that there is huge character developments, love stories, jealousy, twists and a great adventure with magic to read about. It should definitely be on your to be read list.

I'd give this book 4.5 stars as I feel like it was well wrote, and the storyline was good. The reason it doesn't make 5 stars is because I was able to put it down and the sex scene was a bit too detailed for my liking. For a 5 star rating I must not be able to put the book down.

Favourite Character: Louise

Read: 18/10/19 - 31/10/19

4.5 stars out of 5

Written by Sammie