Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Blood & Honey by Shelby Mahurin

49 reviews

selestre's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.75


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kitsunasaur's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I originally dnf’d this book, due to it being frustratingly slow and boring for 85%, but I wanted to finish the series. I liked the first book so much and I hear the third book is better. Rereading it as an audio book from the beginning helped a lot. The acting really helped the slow parts and made some characters more lovable then before. 

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theintrovertsbooks's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25


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lmmw230494's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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tallyp's review

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challenging dark sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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bzliz's review

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dark reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

People on booktok give this a hard time which I understand but I don’t think it’s fully justified. Blood & Honey is not as action packed as Serpent & Dove (most of the real action takes place in the last 150ish pages) but it conveys some pretty serious character development that I think will be important going into the third book. 

Lou’s journey is so interesting. She has escaped certain death at the hands of her mother twice now and she’s flirting with the darkness inside her. Even after overhearing the people she loves discussing her behavior and choices, she doesn’t realize what she’s doing and is becoming a pretty unreliable narrator. It takes a major incident (
Spoilerunintentionally setting Coco on fire
) for her to realize what a slippery slope she’s on and try to turn it around. She’s also accumulated 3 matagots- who are attracted to lost souls- when it’s unusual for someone to attract more than one. Honestly, I want her to gather a whole army of these adorable little shadow messenger spies. 

Reid is also going through it. He’s grappling with the revelation that he’s a witch and the utter self-loathing that comes with that, plus his known parentage, PLUS his grief for the Archbishop who was practically a father to him. He makes a minor attempt to bond with Beau and I can definitely see them building a brotherly relationship despite Beau’s warnings against romanticizing the idea of their father and siblings. Reid also starts taking steps to atone for past actions that he thought were right at the time. He will be the light to balance out Lou’s darkness. 

Coco also got some time to shine and I loved it. The book is titled for her magic. She is the crew’s in with the Dame Rouge and she is one of Lou’s tethers to keep her from descending further. She also finally kisses Ansel and subsequently breaks his heart which leads to a beautiful scene with Lou that really showcases the strength of their bond. I really appreciate the relationship between Lou and Coco; too many fantasy stories don’t maintain F/F relationships once the love interest comes in. 

One tiny little side question I have is: what happened to Bas? Maybe I blinked and missed it but did he survive after the bandits attacked the troupe? Did they just leave him there? I don’t remember any mention of what happened to him at all. 

Discussion of major character death under the spoiler. Don’t read if you don’t want to know and stop scrolling because others have not bothered to hide it. 
SpoilerMadame Labelle is captive after Reid and Beau break out of their father’s prison but that is not enough to give their mission serious stakes. She’s the oldest member of their crew and Reid still feels resentful toward her for giving him up. To really feel the devastation of Morgane’s reign of terror, someone beloved has to die and that person is Ansel. He was the baby of the group and the most innocent. He’s their little golden retriever and they absolutely have to lose that force of pure goodness to get rid of Morgane.


Over all, I did enjoy this book and I’m looking forward to the next one. 

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what_karla_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0


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onemamareads's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Read my full review here: https://onemamassummer.weebly.com/book-reviews/blood-honey

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cait's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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beckyyreadss's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I honestly need to find a way to stop reading a series if I lose interest in this. I didn’t find the first book all that interesting and was sort of waiting for it to end and instead of going, I don’t think I'm going to like this series, I went and read the second one and oh my god, it was so slow.  

This book picks up where it left off in the first book, Lou, Reid, Coco and Ansel are on the run from covens, kingdom and the church after narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Dames Blanches. To elude the scores of witches and throngs of chasseurs at their heels, Lou and Reid need allies. Strong ones, but protection always comes with a price, and the group is forced to embrace on separate quests to build their forces, as Lou and Reid try to close the widening rift between them, the dastardly Morgane baits them into a lethal game of cat and mouse that threatens to destroy them. 

Okay, you know this book is bad when you are rooting for the villain to kill the MCs. The only one I liked out of this whole book was Ansel and well, we all saw what happened there. I just felt like this book was building and building for something to happen that never did. If someone was to ask me what this book was about tomorrow, I would have no clue whatsoever. I didn’t feel like there was any character development or progress between the couples that were formed in the first book. I didn’t understand or care for the plot again because both MCs drove me nuts. Expect for Lou and Reid, I remember two characters and that because they carried the book being Coco and Ansel. I felt like I was getting whiplash with both going against their word every chapter. I wanted them to each love each other and stick together or try and kill each other and again, the miscommunication trope drove this book into the dirt. This book could have been 100 pages long and it would have more plot that the 500-page book I've just finished.  

The only reason this didn’t get one star is because of the dual POV.  

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