Serpent & Dove plot summary

Lou is a thief, a fugitive and a witch. While stealing an artifact to help keep her hidden from the coven she fled, she crosses paths with Reid, a witch hunter and favourite of the Archbishop. When the two are forced to marry it seems to Lou like the ultimate protection. Surely the witches hunting her won’t be able to reach her in the stronghold of the Chasseurs. But she can’t hide who she is forever. And, as much as Reid seems to be softening towards her, he’s adamant about one thing: all witches must burn.

Content warnings

• Violence and physical abuse/assault
• Self-harm
• Sexism

My thoughts on Serpent & Dove

Serpent & Dove is the debut novel from Shelby Mahurin, first in a trilogy which is now complete. So if you do want to binge the whole thing, there’s nothing standing in your way! It’s a fantasy romance, with the relationship between its two protagonists forming the backbone of the story.

Lou and Reid are opposites in almost every way. Witch and witch hunter. Casually criminal and staunchly law-abiding. Irreverent and religious. Reid is horrified by Lou’s lack of propriety. Lou is horrified by Reid’s insistence that witches aren’t people and deserve to be burned at the stake for simply existing. Opposites attract, I suppose!

The plot of Serpent & Dove rests on some odd decisions

The blurb of the book will tell you that Lou and Reid are forced to get married. The reasons behind this felt incredibly flimsy to me, and it got the book off to a wobbly start. There’s a conversation between Reid and the Archbishop about marriage, because Reid has a woman he loves. He won’t marry her though, for a couple of reasons, one of which seems to be that it might compromise his position as a chasseur, or witch hunter. The Archbishop approves of this decision! Only to turn around a few pages later and tell him he has to marry this petty criminal.

For Lou’s part, her decision to go along with this marriage comes down to self-preservation. She’s threatened with a thief’s punishment if she says no, but more importantly it will (she hopes) protect her from the witches hunting her. All she has to do is hide her identity from the people she’s now surrounded by, and keep a low profile. Except she keeps leaving the tower, or seeming to draw as much attention to herself as possible, or arguing vehemently with Reid in favour of witches. It just seemed like strange behaviour considering her reasons for going along with this bizarre marriage in the first place.

The slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance was the most substantial plot element of the book

Lou and Reid slowly develop feelings for each other, which you see play out through alternating point of view chapters. This made up the biggest component of the story’s plot, and I thought it worked alright. I wasn’t enormously invested in their relationship, partly because I had a hard time connecting with Lou.

I also think there were some missed opportunities in the romance. There wasn’t a lot of development in the way they interacted with each other over the course of the book. I’d have liked to see Lou start off trying to hide her views from Reid more, perhaps, slowly growing more comfortable arguing with him over the course of the book. Or it might have been fun to see Reid start off more stand-offish and incurious about Lou, only to grow more interested in knowing more about how she became the woman she was as the story progressed.

There was growth in the way the two responded to each other, but I think it could have been pushed further. Particularly considering the other main storyline of the book – about Lou’s origins and why she fled her coven – feels very much like background.

The worldbuilding of Serpent & Dove left a little to be desired

As you may have gathered by the fact that the witch hunters are known as ‘chasseurs’, Serpent & Dove has some French influences. Mostly it’s in the odd word and character names, and doesn’t stretch much farther than that.

The worldbuilding is, honestly, quite thin. I don’t know whether the world will be expanded in the rest of the trilogy, I’ve only read book one, but there’s little to no sense of the world beyond the town the characters live in.

The magic system is an interesting one, however. It seems to operate on a principle of equivalent exchange, with witches having to give up something of similar value to the outcome they want. This is how Lou’s type of magic works anyway, there are other types of witches for whom things function differently. This was a fun idea, and I liked the glimpses we got of the magic in action. I just wish it had been explored and explained further! Particularly given there was a sub-plot around Lou practicing her magic to get back in the habit of it! That would have been an ideal opportunity to give readers an up-close look at how it functioned.

While fun, I didn’t feel it stood up to a lot of the other fantasy books I read this year

I had a good time with Serpent & Dove, but felt like I had to overlook a lot to keep enjoying myself. There were some internal inconsistencies in the way the world functioned, the main characters felt like broad stereotypes without a lot of charm to them, and I just couldn’t get invested in the conflicts at play. Some of this might be down to hype; I’d seen so many people seem to rave about Serpent & Dove, I was excited to get in on the fun. When it came down to it, I thought it was fine, but not much more.

For a similar (but much more compelling) enemies-to-lovers romance, I’d recommend Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom. I’ve seen Lou and Reid compared to Nina and Matthias a few times. Personally, I think the way the relationship develops between Nina and Matthias is vastly more engaging and moving. Plus, the world of that duology feels much better realised than what I’ve seen so far in Serpent & Dove.

If you’re interested in hearing more about what I thought of this book, including one plot hole that I practically faceplanted into and really couldn’t forgive, check out the Serpent & Dove episode of the Island Library podcast!

What did you think of Serpent & Dove? Do you agree with my overall assessment, or have I been grossly unfair? Let me know in the comments!

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