Reviews with content warning for Blood - Blood & Honey

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Blood & Honey by Shelby Mahurin

65 reviews

irenemayblack's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
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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bribreez's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful sad 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

4.5⭐️/ 1🌶️

Lou and Reid’s story was far from over with this sequel! As if anything would get easier for these characters, they now had to figure out how to stop Lou’s mother a.k.a. The Queen of Witches essentially, and ensuring she didn’t try to get Lou again in order to carry out her evil plans. This story once again had adventure, danger, magic, and the occasional bash and sometimes reckless behavior from Lou. Lou, Reid, Coco, Ansel, Beau, and Madame Labelle found themselves trying to figure out how to stop Morgane (Lou’s mom) and trying to find allies to help them stop her.

I always imagined magic to be a wondrous, exciting thing, but that was the furthest truth from what actually occurred in this book/series. Anytime Lou used her magic there was always a give and take to it. In order to utilize her magic, there needed to be balance, and in order to do that it resulted in Lou giving something up in place of the type of magic she wanted to use at certain moments. Seeing the magic over the two books so far made me realize that magic wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The type of magic in this book required even giving parts of yourself that unbeknownst to me (until now) could actually have strong effects such as, changing the type of person you were. For Lou and others like her that was always something that required a type of sacrifice to use their magic, and the magic in this story specifically highlighted just how far Lou was willing to go in order to protect Reid and her friends, even if it meant giving up a memory, breaking her bones, the list goes on, but the main point was even I was beginning to worry about the lengths Lou would go with her magic.

Between trying to evade the Chasseur’s, Morgane, and other potential bounty hunters, Lou and her friends were faced with a lot of obstacles. The first book set the tone for what would only be the beginning of this adventure of magic and danger lurking at every corner. Meeting new people who would help Lou, and simultaneously becoming allies alongside her too. As if that wasn’t enough, there was the inner struggle that Reid had with his knowledge of having magic, and he wasn’t all to excited to learn more about it. This book dived more into each of the characters struggles from their own relationships between one another to their own individual weaknesses. Lou was caught between trying to help in anyway she could, but sometimes the prices she paid in using her magic seemed more and more reckless. Reid was unsure why Lou would start to keep secrets from him again, and wasn’t sure if he could entirely trust her with everything that had been happening thus far.

OH. MY. GOSH! One of the things I love about this story is how just when I think I know what’s going on, the story would take a new turn, and be like, “GOTCHA! PLOT TWIST!” As a whole, this story dealt with trying to build alliances in order to take down Morgane, but towards the end, the plot twists came at me, and I. WAS. SHOOK! I definitely wasn’t expecting what happened at the climax, had me crying over it, and UGH WHY?! WHY DID THIS BOOK HAVE TO HURT ME TOWARDS THE END?! I’m serious though, probably my favorite parts were towards the end, and again, the plot twists were so good, that it was right till the very end that had me ON EDGE! Phew, it was a wild ride, mixed with danger, fear, and worry. Even the new characters introduced were so intriguing that there was more to them than I could have ever imagined. Lou and Reid were put to the challenges in their relationship, but it made them stronger and realize they needed to work on themselves in order to properly be husband and wife. I can’t even begin to imagine how the last book is going to end?! AHHH! Needless to say, I gotta know how this trilogy ends, and see my faves get their happy endings!!!

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akrafi's review

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adventurous dark emotional fast-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

4.75

The action never disappoints but the drama was heavy in this book. The awkward tension and the constant squabble of Lou and Reid was taking away from the rest of the events happening. There's a war happening - they're fighting, they're about to die - they're fighting. The ending did make me tear up a bit and I was shocked by the plot twist. It's a really great book but definitely a different tone then the first.

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wayamom8's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-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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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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taka_kateryna's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

4.0

Content Warnings

mixed_emoticon's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

TLDR Review for Blood & Honey

4/5 stars

Highlights:
📚 Book 2 in a Trilogy
🪟 multiple character perspectives
🇫🇷 French Setting
✨ Magic
🎙️ Witty Banter
🎭 Secrecy and dishonesty
🥸 Identity
💝 Devotion
🕊️ Diplomacy
💔 Heartbreak
👿 Corruption
🔪 Betrayal
🩸 there's (still) graphic murder, dying, and death

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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

Content Warnings

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

Content Warnings

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 (

unintentionally 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.

Madame 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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