Book Review: ‘Divine Rivals’ by Rebecca Ross (TikTok favourite YA historical fantasy romance)

I’ve had a hold on the audiobook for Rebecca Ross’s ‘Divine Rivals’ for nearly 5 months, and it finally came in a few weeks back; it was finally time!

Historical novels are generally not my jam, but there has been something about this that has been calling to me, though the comparisons to feeling like an alternate World War I London did put me off. I was wrong, it’s one of my favourite books of the year so far.

When two young rival journalists find love through a magical connection, their fate depends on their facing the depths of hell … together.

After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again …

All eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow wants to do is hold her family together. With a brother on the frontline forced
to fight on behalf of the Gods now missing from the frontline and a mother drowning her sorrows, Iris’s best bet is winning the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.

But when Iris’s letters to her brother fall into the wrong hands – that of the handsome but cold Roman Kitt, her rival at the paper – an unlikely magical connection forms.

Expelled into the middle of a mystical war, magical typewriters in tow, can their bond withstand the fight for the fate of mankind and, most importantly, love?

There’s something really special about this book and these characters. The story is rich, the writing enchanting, and the characters are impossible not to fall in love with - it’s a novel that I didn’t want to stop listening to, but also didn’t want to end. I sometimes struggle with a consistent element in the story that removes the reader from the immediate story, letters between Iris and Roman in this case, but they were one of my favourite elements of the story. The way they wrote to each other made me swoon and watching them fall in love was a delight. Rivals to lovers doesn’t always feel genuine to me, but I think it was done perfectly in ‘Divine Rivals’. The conflict between them was vivid and real with genuine consequences and slow move towards attraction, the reaching out of friendship and their separation was done so beautifully.

The vivid characterisation extended to the supporting characters, and even minor characters who featured for only a few pages. Marisol and Attie didn’t feel like additions to Iris and Roman’s story, they were an integral part of their lives and their experiences and they helped to bring Roman and Iris’s world to life.

One of the most resonant themes from the story is the right to feel joy and love and hope in dark, dangerous and scary times.

“Do you think we could live in a world made only of those things? Death and pain and horror? Loss and agony? It's not a crime to feel joy, even when things seem hopeless.”

Though our world right now is different to Iris and Roman’s, our world is terrifying and it gets scarier every day. The kind of escapism and message of hope in ‘Divine Rivals’ makes it a perfect balm, and an important read in the YA realm. Though I will note that for me, ‘Divine Rivals’ doesn’t necessarily read like YA. Iris is 18 and Roman is 19 but their situations push them into adulthood mush earlier and they read closer to mid-20s for the majority of the novel.

I adored this book and I can tell you right now that I’ll not be waiting the 4 months left on my library hold for the audiobook of book two, ‘Ruthless Vows’, and I’ll be grabbing it from Audible or Spotify immediately instead. I love these characters and I want to be back with them rather desperately.

Thank you BookTok - you win this one.

Written by Sophie