Oh. My. Goodness. This duology is everything. One of my best friends recommended this duology to me and I am SO happy I read it. I have been plowing through books this year (I know, it’s not even March yet!!) and have read around 8 books so far this year and this series is one of the best. It is such a sweet love story filled with romance, courage, and obstacles that I couldn’t put it down!
Disclosure: Going forward there will be spoilers, so please read carefully! Also, this is strictly my opinion and how I felt about this book. I am not compensated for any of my reviews.
Divine Rivals – book 1
In the first book, Divine Rivals, Rebecca Ross does a great job of building the world that our main characters, Iris and Roman, are in. There is magic in this world but not as much as some other series (such as ACOTAR). I love that we follow the human world with a hint of magic in it. There are beings called “divines” that hold the magic and ley lines that house magic throughout the human world. One of the biggest pieces of magic is the typewriters that the main characters have. There were 3 magically typewriters made for 3 women who were best friends so they could stay in touch when one of their friends was no longer able to speak or move due to illness. The second and third typewriters were handed down to their grandchildren, Iris and Roman, and the first typewriter was preserved in a magically museum. Because Iris and Roman are both journalists for a local newspaper, their typewriters mean a great deal to them. They end up learning that whenever they typed a letter with the magic typewriters and placed the letter in a door, it would go to the matching typewriter. So, Iris and Roman were exchanging letters to each other without knowing who it was. Well, Roman knew he was writing to Iris because he recognized her writing, but he didn’t tell her it was him. They had a strong rivalry going on at work and didn’t particularly like each other in the beginning. The letters drew them closer and Roman fell in love.
While all of this is going on, there is a war happening between the two Divines (Dacre and Enva) who have enlisted humans to fight for them on the battlefield. The two Divines were married. Enva was married against her will but had the powers of music to sing the other divines to sleep. She did this so she could get away from Dacre. However, once he awoke, he was furious and that is what started the war. The parallels in the love story of Iris and Roman and Dacre and Enva are strong but it is clear that Ross wanted to highlight what pure and true love (Iris and Roman) looks like in comparison to manipulative and destructive love (Dacre and Enva).
Eventually, Iris goes to the front lines as a correspondent to hopefully find her brother and Roman ends up following her there. It isn’t until they are in the trenches together and Roman shields her from a grenade that she learns that he is source of the letters. She finds out as he is recovering and while she is upset that she hid that from him, she ends up falling in love with him. They get married in the midst of war and the next day their town is gas bombed and they are separated. The first book ends with Iris and Roman getting separated and Roman gets taken by Dacre and Iris is saved by her brother, Forrest.
Ruthless Vows – book 2
In this book, we follow Iris and Roman as they try to find each other again and end the war. Dacre has Roman and has wiped his memory, but Iris uses the typewriters to communicate with him even though he doesn’t remember her. Eventually, Roman ends up remembering everything and works as a spy in Dacre’s forces to help Iris defeat him. Due to a bargain Enva made years ago, she is unable to actually kill Dacre so that is why she needs Iris. Roman and Iris continue to thwart Dacre’s plans throughout the book and at the end, Dacre finds out Roman is the spy and throws him in his underworld dungeons to die.
Iris is clever and uses all of the magic that she can find to defeat Dacre and find Roman. She uses her typewriter and a magical sword that can cut through anything while she also has her friend, Addie, play the song that put him to sleep on her violin. Enva works through Addie, Iris, and Roman to defeat Dacre. All the while, Roman and Iris are trying to survive and keep their love strong. Iris ends up finding Roman and they continue to write letters to each other and start to build a life together after the war. The book ends a year after the end of the war with Roman writing a book for Iris and both of them very much in love. It truly was a great love story.
Why 4/5?
I absolutely adored this series. I think that Ross does a great job of building a love story in the midst of war to really pull the reader in. It was incredibly relatable because the main characters were human and had no magic. While there was magic in their world, they only used it when necessary. I found the use of writing as a way to defeat Dacre as a powerful statement to how much influence writing has on the general public. I also thought that incorporating the love letters really upped the romance of the series and together, they became a tool to defeat Dacre.
I did take off 1 point only because there were some moments in the book that I thought it didn’t make sense that Iris or Roman were not caught spying or trying to find ways to defeat Dacre. There were moments where I thought something they did and got away with was too easy and only done to make the plot work. But there were only about 3 instances of this, so I think I still deserves a 4/5.
I highly recommend reading this book if you love a good romance with strong characters. I would especially recommend this if you like a hint of magic in the books but not an overwhelming amount. I will say that the fact that this highlighted humans and the power of writing as the fighting force to win in the end really made this story stand out amongst the rest. Overall, 4/5.
Copyright 2024. Jessica Nash. All rights reserved.
