Hey all, Sam here.
Well, it has been a pretty fun day, and that’s why this post is up so late, because I didn’t have it completely typed up before we headed off to do some errands and such. I need to work on building up my drafted and scheduled posts again, so I’m not constantly trying to finish up blog posts the day they’re supposed to go live. I miss having my posts completed at least a few days early (aside from WIP Wednesday, which we always write up Tuesday night/Wednesday day).
Anyway, I’ve been making decent progress on reading some of my NetGalley e-ARCs and getting posts written up…but as soon as I add a few reviews to my account, I tend to discover that I’ve been approved for a few more upcoming releases. It’s like a never-ending cycle, which makes it even harder to improve my review percentage. So I guess I’m just going to have to work a little harder to catch up on that, which just means that I’m going to read a little faster. I’m okay with that.
That means we should go ahead and jump into today’s review, because as soon as I’m done, I can get back to reading some more of my TBR pile. Let’s get started.
NO GOD
NO CREATURE
NO WAR
CAN COME BETWEEN THEMThe latest from the number one SUNDAY TIMES bestseller Rebecca Ross
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?
An epic enemies-to-lovers fantasy novel filled with hope and heartbreak, and the unparalleled power of love.
My Thoughts
Rating: 5 stars
“An epic enemies-to-lovers fantasy.” Look, I honestly kinda disagree with this just a little bit, because Iris and Roman are rivals. They’re both trying to get the same promotion at the newspaper so that pits them against each other, but it isn’t like they’re fully enemies or anything.
Still, I definitely felt like this book did a fantastic job drawing out the tension and yearning between the two main characters. I was eagerly flipping through the pages, following along as they wrote letters to each other and their bond grew through those exchanges. Add to it that one of them knows who the other is from the beginning, and oh man, it made their relationship fascinating and complex.
The worldbuilding of the gods and their history was pretty fascinating too, and we got just enough to honestly make us more curious, or at least that’s how it felt to me.
When I started reading this, I didn’t exactly realize that it wasn’t a standalone, so I started to get nervous as I neared the end of the book, especially as things happened to complicate inter-character relationships more. So thank goodness there’s at least one more book coming, because there was a lot that didn’t wrap up.
There were some stunningly beautiful sentences in Divine Rival, sentences about grief and love and finding joy even in the dark times, and I really wish that I had paused to jot them down so I didn’t forget them. But at least I can read this book again, and that time I’ll mark the passages that stood out to me. Basically I did enjoy the writing. It was beautiful and compelling and I just wanted to keep reading.
Which is why it is incredibly stupid that it took me as long as it did for me to read this. I would read a few pages and then set the book aside, and not pick it up again for a day or two, and again read just a few pages…so it took me like a week to read this, when it only should have taken a few hours in total. Because I ended up flying through this book when I gave it more than just a few minutes.
I need to know more about Enva and Dacre. I need to find out if Iris and Roman find their way back to each other. Basically, I need the next book, but at the moment all the information we have is a possible release date of January 1, 2024. There’s no title or cover or anything else just yet…but I’ll be keeping an eye out, because I’ll be wanting to read the next one as soon as I can.
Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
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