Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross – a Review

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Description:
After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again. But eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow just wants to hold her family together. Her mother is suffering from addiction and her brother is missing from the front lines. Her best bet is to win the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.

To combat her worries, Iris writes letters to her brother and slips them beneath her wardrobe door, where they vanish―into the hands of Roman Kitt, her cold and handsome rival at the paper. When he anonymously writes Iris back, the two of them forge a connection that will follow Iris all the way to the front lines of battle: for her brother, the fate of mankind, and love.

Review:

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross is the first book in her new Historical fantasy romance, Iris at the Front series. I am a big fan of Rebecca Ross, as I have read and loved her previous books. We meet Iris Winnow, our heroine, at the start, when she watches her brother leave to fight in the gods’ war, with a promise to write to her. The setting of this story had the feel of WW1.  Iris, who is 18 years old, becomes a reporter for the Oath Gazette, with a possible promotion, knowing her competition is her rival, Roman Kitt.  Both of them started out as not liking each other, with both trying to best each other’s columns to have a chance at the promotion.  Iris started sending out letters to her brother, who never responded.

In this slight element of fantasy, her letters are mysteriously magically rerouted to Roman, as both had a special magic typewriter. Neither one knew who was sending or receiving these letters, with both using different names; in a short time, their feelings for each other will change. Through the letters, both Iris and Kit start falling in love, though she still thinks she is in love with Carver (his middle name).

After Iris’s mother dies, and the war of the gods escalates, she quits her job at Oath Gazette and becomes a war correspondent, leading her into the dangers of war, including the front lines. Worried about Iris, Kit decides he needs to join her, help protect her during this war of the gods. 

This was a very emotional and heart-wrenching story, but most importantly was the amazing romance between Iris and Kit; they were so great together. I loved Iris, as she was a strong and independent heroine, who was always ready to help others in need. Kit was also very good, especially when he realized he was falling in love with Iris, and gave up everything to join her as a war correspondent; his love for Iris was so beautiful.

Divine Rivals was a story filled with grief, tragedy, death, with humans fighting in the midst of this horrible war; a war started with two gods, Enva and Dacre, who were enemies.  Divine Rivals was well written by Rebecca Ross, that was heart wrenching, with so much heartbreak, horrors; but the wonderful sweeping love story between Iris and Roman was fantastic. I will say that the ending was a surprise and somewhat mixed.  I am happy that Ross will have more books in this series.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher