Review: Divine Rivals

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

Two centuries ago, the Skyward and Underlings Gods had been defeated and buried but the underling god, Dacre, mysteriously awakened seven months ago and now there's a war between him and another awakened god, the Skyward Enva. Enva's music calls people to war for her and Iris Winnow's brother Forest has heard the call. He makes her promise to stay in school and says he'll be back in a few months when the war is won but after months of not hearing from him, Iris is worried. She's also had to drop out of school, try and take care of her alcoholic mother, and battle for the promotion at the Oath Gazette where she's worked for three months. Roman Kitt comes from privilege but Iris still can't help being drawn to him. As their rivalry has them clashing and bonding, the war on the horizon gets all too real. 

She unfolded and read the letter. She felt her breath catch. 

This isn’t Forest. 

Divine Rivals is the first in series about war, gods, and love. This didn't have quite the explanation or world-building that I was looking for in it's fantasy aspects. I think this was due in part to keeping some mystery, why the gods awakened and the true story of Dacre and Enva has obviously been held back to stretch into a series and the development of the romance between Iris and Roman was more of the focus here. I felt the romance was a little weak, there's a lot of dragged out high emotion, that probably does fit the YA tag, but not a lot of relationship substance to hold onto. I also felt that the second half had this edging more into New Adult, Iris is eighteen and Roman nineteen, with their thoughts and actions and a sex scene; wasn't graphic, more “skin-to-skin” and “luminous” talk. 

He deserved this, though. It was his fault that he was his father’s sole heir. He deserved to be miserable. 

The time period felt World War I-ish, trams, typewriters, slicked back hair, and braces and piggy-backed on that known atmosphere of war breaking out and how it was real for the countries involved but felt so far away to other countries and they weren't concerned. With Iris and Roman working at a newspaper, there was some good connection to how propaganda works and why papers print and don't print what they do. With Iris feeling frustrated at the paper and wanting to discover what has happened to her brother, it set her up nicely to become a war correspondent and bring her and the reader to the action at the front lines. In the first half, the only fantasy we really get is talk of the gods, a magical grocery store, and the magic behind Iris typing out a letter that she wishes she could send to her brother Forest, sticking it in her closet, having it mysteriously disappear, and someone writing her a letter back. I'm sure it's not a big mystery who is getting the letter and writing back. Magic, wanting to escape from an engagement his father set-up, and missing Iris, Roman takes the steps to join Iris at the front. 

He would always be grateful for his decision that night, not so long ago. The night when he decided to write her back. 

The second half moved faster with some action, we get to meet some other secondary characters, Dacre's monsters make appearances, and we get Iris and Roman living through some trench warfare. The latter second half has Iris finding out who was writing her, her correspondent knew the whole time, working through those feelings, and then the last twenty percent has Iris and Roman making a commitment. The ending also has Dacre showing up, along with someone from Iris' past, and we get Iris and Roman separated to have to find each other in the next book. The brief myth we got of the five gods sounds interesting but there just wasn't enough invested in the fantasy elements in this to necessarily make me want to read the second, the same with the romance between Iris and Roman. Enva and Dacre had a very Persephone and Hades vibe but, again, they didn't really show up. This basically had the dragged out to stretch into a series slowness and even though I have questions, I'm not sure my attention was grabbed enough to want answers.

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