Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin

Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin

♥♥♥♥♥**

Title: Serpent & Dove
Author: Shelby Mahurin
Year Published: 2019
Format: Physical book, Audiobook
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult, 

Review*:
   It's been a long time since I've been able to say this about a book, but I liked this book. 😍It was like a really cute love story. I'm super happy that I picked this for Tome Topple and that I was able to finish it.
   I started out reading my physical copy, but I realized I wasn't going to have a lot of downtime in the read-a-thon time slot to get to sit and read so I switched to audiobook. As I've mentioned here and there, I've been struggling with audiobooks lately and just finding ones that I feel engaged in. I mostly renewed my subscription to re-read ACOMAF, but I decided to listen to the sample of this and I think both narrators do a great job of playing each character. 
    I think what I enjoyed the most in this book was the clear arc for these characters and the relationships they've built. You instantly love Lou as she manuvers through the brothel, along with CoCo who I for some reason thought would betray Lou. I loved that CoCo was a blood witch and there are different types of witch. I hope that is a little bit more expanded on in the next book. As much as I initially thought that the opening scene was a bit abrupt, I think the writing really wraps you into, like just jumping into the driver seat and letting things happen.
   Reid made me laugh because I think he was the most stereotypical character in the book, along with the chasseurs. The voice narrator for Reid's parts, Holter Graham,(Narrator of the Nevernight series) did a great job of bringing the Arch Bishop to life as an automatically unlikable character even through the transition of the relationship built between him and Reid. The descriptors and Reid's actions itself lent a lot to the story in very few words. You can kind of picture based off the few setting points we receive some of the world building that isn't specifically directed.
   What I think made the book super enjoyable was not being able to pin point who the villain was throughout the whole story. You knew that the predicament Lou and Reid got themselves into would eventually come to the service, but outside of the conflict that was created pretty early in the story, its not clear on where the events are going. Mahurin did a great job of subtly dropping pieces of the story throughout while continuing to make it entertaining and unpredictable.
    This book makes me excited to read again, which is something I've been looking for and although I feel like I'm pulling myself out of a bit of a slump, it was a great segway into becoming more engaged and understanding what I find interesting in a story that makes me want to read it. I am SO excited for the next book and I'm really debating picking up The Bookish Box special edition.

tl;dr: I fucking enjoyed this book, okay?
   

*This section may contain spoilers.
** This rating is concluded from the CAWPILE system.