Gods & Monsters cover art

Gods & Monsters

Serpent & Dove, Book 3

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Gods & Monsters

By: Shelby Mahurin
Narrated by: Holter Graham, Saskia Maarleveld
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About this listen

Evil always seeks a foothold. We must not give it one.

The electrifying conclusion to the New York Times and Indiebound best-selling Serpent & Dove trilogy is perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas and Kendare Blake.

Lou has spent her whole life running. Now, after a crushing blow from Morgane, the time has come to go home - and claim what is rightfully hers.

But this is no longer the Lou her friends knew. No longer the Lou who captured a chasseur’s heart. A darkness has settled over her, and this time it will take more than love to drive it out.

From Serpent & Dove to Blood & Honey and concluding with Gods & Monsters, Shelby Mahurin's stunning fantasy trilogy delivers thrills and romance.

©2021 Shelby Mahurin (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Historical Literature & Fiction Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Magic Heartfelt
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bit trope heavy but vibey. slightly dissapointed but better than the second one. all in all, it's okay.

Trope heavy

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Up, down and all around. I loved the epilogue to finish the story off. Beautiful.

What a roller coaster

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First off, there are a few reviews ssying they didn't like the narration. I listened to this at 1.5 speed, like a do with all audio books, and I feel like that'll fix the slowness for most people. I thought it was fantastic anyway~
Now, the story. I loved it. There were some real eye roll moments but the overall story and world building was great. I loved these characters and found myself in tears at some points. definitely a worth while read 💕

Incredible story

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Get ready for the roller coaster ride!!! Many times I found myself wanting to race ahead and see what’s coming next. So many twists and turns but a fabulous, complete ending to the series. Another book to add to the collection to read again later. I loved it

Love a book which finishes without leaving anything untied!!!!

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Enjoyed the book, good read. Could have easily been a duet instead of a trilogy though.

Only narrator critic is that Holter Graham's voice for Lou changed and made her sound like an evil old creepy crone in Reid's POV. Not sure if that was intentional but it was weird and messed around with what I was hearing vs what was being read. Eg. Lou's being seductive but the voice makes it sound like she's being manipulative & creepy. Realised it was tarnishing my view of Lou & taking enjoyment out of the story but thankfully I realised and could move past it. At the end he went back to his usual softer voice for her.

Enjoyable minus one tone

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This wrapped everything up so well. I loved it! Everything I wanted in the finale. The narrators aren’t my favourite for the characters but after 3 books I have come to really enjoy them.

Great Ending To A Great Trilogy

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I absolutely hate doing reviews like this. I really wanted to love this book. Also, after Blood and Honey, I was hoping we would get a strong and solid finale. That, unfortunately, is not the case here. I wasn´t too happy when I learned that S&D would be made into a trilogy in the first place. It is very rare for a series that is expanded while the story is already on the way to maintain the quality it would have had using the original outline.

Serpent & Dove is one of my favourite YA fantasy books. It is a bit tropey, but the clichés in it work perfectly, the characters are loveable, and the overall story makes sense. While I quite liked Blood and Honey as I read it, none of the actions and plotlines in it contributed to the story in any significant way, and the characters basically wandered around without accomplishing anything. I genuinely thought it would all change in Gods & Monsters; the storylines would merge and it would all start to make sense as the bigger picture would emerge. I was so very wrong about that. The whole book feels like someone turned on the shuffle function. It just proves that there is a finite amount of ingredients one can use before a delicious dish turns into one hot mess. The author threw everything into the final book, and even though it´s a chunky one, not one of the elements is explored properly. We barely skim the surface of this world and its peoples. Most of it should have been introduced in the second book or cut out altogether, and it would probably not have been as confusing and exhausting.

To be a bit more specific, here are some of the things I couldn´t get past:
1. The plot armour was incredibly thick in this one. It reached the point when there was no logic to some of the events whatsoever.
2. The sheer amount of new information was simply overwhelming and almost none of it went beyond the surface level.
3. The individual plotlines played virtually no role in the overall story and therefore felt like padding.
4. The humour. I loved the humour in S&D. However, it felt completely misplaced here. The situations where it was used were far too serious to add a comic relief element. It made no sense.
5. THE LANGUAGE! I don´t mind cursing in books at all. I love feisty characters with foul mouths. But this just wasn´t consistent with the previous books, I´m sorry. The cursing in S&D had a purpose and was used very well. Here, it was overused by everyone, and therefore very jarring.

I really am heartbroken because I loved the original premise. The characters are very dear to my heart and the world is lush and magical, but when you don´t have a plot, the story has no heart. And without a heart, there is no story, no matter how beautiful the shell is. Were it not for a fact that I simply don´t DNF books (especially if it´s a series finale), I would have given up within the first 150 pages. I got to the end only through sheer willpower, and I had a distinct feeling both narrators felt the same way because they were overdoing some of the scenes horribly, which is very unlike either of their other performances.

I honestly hope others will love this book. For me, Serpent & Dove will remain a standalone I will always love to revisit.

I am SOOO disappointed!

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