Review by Booklist Review
Near the end of The Scarlet Veil (2023), heroine Chasseur Célie is dying and is saved by vampire king Michal, though he swore to never make another of his kind. The Shadow Bride begins some weeks after, with Célie trying--and mostly failing--to pretend she's still fully human and can still be normal amongst her coterie of close royal friends. Even worse, while she was dying of blood loss, her magical blood leaked into the waterways, causing the dead to reanimate as mindless, revenant zombies. On a quest to find out if her sister Filippa is trying to torture her from the other side of the veil, Célie's life is no end of chaos. When she finds out her sister made a deal with Death, Célie is determined to keep that secret from her friends, fracturing those relationships further. Mahurin's undead, both vampire and zombie, are unreal and scary, especially when faced with the need to feed. Pick this up to finish off the enticing duology set in the fan-favorite Serpent & Dove universe.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
When the veil between life and death is torn, threatening everything and everyone she loves, Célie is determined to take "till death do us part" as a challenge, her role as Bride of Death notwithstanding, in this sequel toThe Scarlet Veil (2023). Célie's life has very abruptly gone to hell in a handbasket. She's been turned into a vampire and abandoned by the mysterious and infuriatingly alluring man who turned her. Fearful of hurting her friends, she can't eat or sleep, and she loathes herself and what she's become. Célie is also being haunted by her late sister, Filippa. The dead are walking, something is going wrong with magic, and Death himself has manifested in corporeal form to claim his due. Only Célie can mend what's been broken--but at what cost? This sequel picks up without much time spent reorienting readers to plot points or character dynamics. As in the first book, the drama spools on for too long, only properly picking up momentum about two-thirds of the way through the book. What starts as a slow-burn romance soon becomes quite the opposite, and although the stakes are generally higher than before and there are some very touching moments, the narrative never quite comes together in a satisfying way, and the worldbuilding and characters feel shallow and lack sufficient context. Most characters are light-skinned. Intriguing but convoluted and underdeveloped.(Paranormal. 16-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
