Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment #1) by Rebecca Ross
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 Oat 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.
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I am absolutely destroyed. This book has destroyed me. Rebecca Ross weaves such enchantments with her writing that her books just take over your every emotion with a few magic paragraphs. This book was beyond magic. I didn’t think it would beat A River Enchantment for me… but it far exceeded. Rivals to lovers, historical-esque fiction in a fantasy world, World War inspiration, secret pen pals, magic typewriters, this book had everything I didn’t know I needed. The characters Iris and Roman leapt off the page. Their banter was unmatched, their chemistry off the charts. But more than the romance, this book was about grief and the various ways to overcome it. At least that’s how it felt for me. This book follows Iris as she experiences so much loss and Roman as he learns who he wants to be. It highlights the cruelty, unfairness, and senseless destruction of war. Yet hope and light bled through every page. I fell in love with this book absolutely.
Iris is an aspiring writer competing for the position of columnist against the rich, debonair Roman Kitt. She’s just sent her older brother off to war, her mother battles with addiction, and she’s barely staying afloat. Then she begins to find solace in writing letters through her magic typewriter to a mysterious friend. Roman struggles under the weight of guilt and family expectations. He’s competing with a frustratingly talented coworker for a promotion, and yet he can’t get her out of his head. And then the first letter from her appears. Their growing correspondence and ambition leads them both to the front lines and closer to danger than they could have imagined.
One thing Rebecca Ross is, is a master of emotion. Not only in the emotions she so easily pulls from the reader, but in those she can so deeply portray in her characters. Iris and Roman both experience different forms of grief in their life and it was almost too relatable hearing their experiences. We’re taken to the depths of despair, the heights of fear, and the rollercoaster of happiness. This book also doesn’t shy away from the reality of war and what it does to the people involved. The anxiety and terror. We also dive into Iris’ shell-shock and PTSD from her time at the front. This being a YA book, I loved that they did that and didn’t shy away from the reality of war and its impacts.
“…time will slowly heal you, as it is doing for me. There are good days and there are difficult days. Your grief will never fully fade; it will always be with you - a shadow you carry in your soul - but it will become fainter as your life becomes brighter. You will learn to live outside of it again, as impossible as that may sound. Others who share your pain will also help you heal. Because you are not alone. Not in your fear or your grief or your hopes or your dreams.
You are not alone.”
I also really enjoyed the magic system and setting of this book. It sometimes felt like an alternate reality war-torn England. The descriptors of the front lines, dead man’s land, and the trenches all felt very realistic/historical except for the small glimmers of the fantasy world within here and there. Most of this book had magic tied in so seamlessly that, if set in our world, could pass for magical realism. My absolute favourite part of this book was the backstory of the gods war, how their “divine intervention” inspires magic, and their parallels to the mythology of our world. Drawing themes from my favourite myths, it set up for an amazing sequel where I feel the fantasy elements of this world will truly shine through.
Obviously I loved this book and will recommend it to anyone I speak to. It pulled at all of my heartstrings. The writing was beautiful, the plot was well-paced, the setting was immersive, and the characters were depthless and extremely relatable. This was most definitely a 5 star read for me.