Antonia Bernardin

My 57th book this year was Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross, lauded by a lot of people as the book for ‘if you like Fourth Wing, you’ll like X’. So, did the book live up to that?

A summary attempt

The God’s are awake again and are at war, this story begins when Iris’s brother heads out to join the war. After he leaves Iris’s life unravels quickly, her mother’s drinking gets out of control and soon all the responsibilities for the house, including paying for food and rent, fall on Iris. Her only hope is to get promoted to the columnist position at the newspaper she works for but she must compete for the position against her nemesis and rich boy, Roman Kit. To cope with the stress Iris begins writing letters to her brother and with nowhere to send them, she is surprised when her letters start to disappear and even more so when a mysterious writer begins replying to them. When a tragedy puts all of Iris’s problems in perspective, she decides to become a war correspondent and heads to the front lines, in the hope of making a difference and maybe finding her brother. To her horror, Kit follows her to the front line and as her feelings for her mysterious letter correspondent grow, she also finds her feelings towards Kit becoming more complicated.

What did I think?

I really enjoyed this book, it is a slow cozy read until she reaches the war front but even then, I love how those things are discussed through the medium of letters and the MC’s articles about the war. It is a completely different vibe to Fourth Wing, I don’t know why it keeps ending up on those lists, however, I still really enjoyed it. The world is really rich, the way the magic is intertwined with everyday life is clever and I really liked how the romance built through the book.