Blood & Honey by Shelby Mahurin Audiobook Review

First and foremost, if you haven’t read Serpent & Dove (find my review here), I’d highly recommend you to do that and to do that before you read the blurb for the book below cause it’s obviously a tad spoiler to the ending of S&D.

I have been pretty excited about this release! I really enjoyed Serpent & Dove when I read it at the end of last year and this COVER. It is stunning and the cliffhanger at the end of S&D solidified that I needed this sequel. I think a lot of people highly anticipated this book. Although I haven’t got a physical copy, Scribd put out its audiobook so I jumped on the chance since I finished my previous audiobook and started listening to it.

Let’s get onto the review!

Goodreads Blurb:

After narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Dames Blanches, Lou, Reid, Coco, and Ansel are on the run from coven, kingdom, and church—fugitives with nowhere to hide.

To elude the scores of witches and throngs of chasseurs at their heels, Lou and Reid need allies. Strong ones. But protection comes at a price, and the group is forced to embark on separate quests to build their forces. As Lou and Reid try to close the widening rift between them, the dastardly Morgane baits them in a lethal game of cat and mouse that threatens to destroy something worth more than any coven.

The hotly anticipated sequel to the New York Times and IndieBound bestseller Serpent & Dove—packed with even steamier romance and darker magic—is perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.5/5)

The main word that comes to mind with this book is disappointment. It was disappointing! We meet Lou and Reid again in the aftermath of S&D, and there were not many refreshers, I literally had to go back and read a summary of S&D because I had forgotten a few things and a few people (oops). They are indeed on the run and trying to figure out how to save Lou’s life, because that also means saving a bunch of children the king has spawned. They are basically running from everything and everyone and of course, despite all that, Lou and Reid are desperately trying to get into each other’s pants. I won’t say more, cause spoilers, but not a whole lot really happened in this book and I think that’s what disappointed me the most.

The plot wasn’t super solid and things dragged a lot because this book was more concerned about character development. Sure, that’s great, but it was dragged out character development and for a book that’s nearly 600 pages, there was not enough to make me love this book. Lou’s character was essentially the same and continued along a scarier path as she made riskier and ‘typical Lou’ decisions. While Reid was just depressing for 80% of this book because of his struggles to accept magic and accept himself as a witch. It felt like a whole lot of nothing, with a small plot twist at the end that slightly changed the game and gave me many feels of Dorian’s character arc in the Throne of Glass series.

When it came to the audiobook, again, I really enjoyed the narration. Both Lou and Reid’s narrators were great although Reid’s narrator was slightly slower and for some reason decided to put on a yee-haw accent for one specific character whereas Lou’s narrator did not. The inconsistency in accents was visible and kind of bothered me a bit. Otherwise, it was actually quite enjoyable listening to this audiobook.

While this novel wasn’t the sequel I was hoping for, it was still enjoyable and interesting to a certain extent as we learnt more about other characters and got to meet new intriguing characters that are surely gonna show up in the next book of this series. The writing was certainly consistent with the first book and while listening on 1.5 then 1.8 speed, it did surprisingly go quite fast. I think the fast pacing of this book, much like S&D is how this managed to get to nearly 600 pages even if there wasn’t a whole lot happening plot or action-wise.

I’m not sure whether it’s going to be a trilogy, but with the way this book felt like filler content, I hope that is. Fingers crossed that the next book can actually blow us away and only indicate that this series suffers from middle-child syndrome.

Have you been anticipating Blood & Honey? If you’ve also read it, I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments below.

Until next time,