Divine Rivals, the first book in the Letters of Enchantment duology made my Top Ten Books of 2023, Ruthless Vows, the sequel, will not even get an honourable mention. But hear me out... it's entirely my fault!
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| ★★★★★ | ★★★☆☆ |
After three decades on this little blue planet you'd imagine I know myself well enough to not set such great expectations on a book, especially on the sequel of a book, especially when it's a YA book (nothing against YA, it's just not my go to genre)... Turns out I don't know myself at all. I loved Divine Rivals but that might also be because I had zero expectations. So the conclusion is... just don't have expectations. Or do. I don't make the rules!
"It takes courage to let down your armor, to welcome people to see you as you are. Sometimes I feel the same as you: I can’t risk having people behold me as I truly am. But there’s also a small voice in the back of my mind, a voice that tells me, “You will miss so much by being so guarded."
Divine Rivals
Divine Rivals follows two rival journalists who get closer communicating through letters during a war among gods, but one of them has no idea she is writing to her arch-nemesis. This is the long story short synopsis, but the book is more than just enemies to lovers, it's also about family, expectations and found family, which is one of my favourite tropes in fantasy.
My biggest complaint about this book is that the world-building is shaky at best, the magic system and everything is a bit of a mess, but also interesting and the gods were just a thing that happened in the background. Fear not, I will come to regret this complaint when we get to the second book.
Anything else, I absolutely loved! The romance was top-notch, it's that good kind of angst and slow-burn that you get from fan-fiction. It's amazing, especially as Iris falls for the mysterious man she is writing to with her magical typewriter, but she is also falling for the rival journalist she never expected to like...
And speaking of fan-fiction, our main characters do remind me of Dramione - Roman is a brunet Draco Malfoy, especially with his whole family situation and you cannot convince me otherwise. While the world-building is missing, the character development is there to make up for it! I want to protect these characters with my own life!
I went into this book more or less blind and I did not know it was a duology... imagine my surprise when I am almost in tears and I get to the end of the book only to find out I need to wait for the next book now!
"I am coming to love him, in two different ways. Face to face, and word to word."
Ruthless Vows
Ruthless Vows was published only 8 months after the first book, similarly to Iron Flame, from The Empyrean series, and I think both books suffered because of that. I am not saying do what George R.R. Martin is doing, but I think writers should take more time between books - do more editing and tweaking and do not rush to get it out just to take advantage of the buzz and success of the previous book.
PS: Spoilers ahead, I mean we are talking about the sequel here, so obviously there are major spoilers, especially from the first book!
Ruthless Vows picks up where Divine Rivals end - Iris's brother saves her but Roman is nowhere to be found, until we find out he was saved by the god Dacre and he has no memory! Introducing the amnesia trope. Although not a fan of this trope, I did enjoy the reversal that we have - now Roman doesn't know who he is writing to, but Iris does. But now they fight for the different side of the war!
I think this book had so much potential and I am sure the author took all the comments about world-building and the gods' lore into consideration, which is why they are the focus of this book. Unfortunately that focus comes at the expense of what made me love Divine Rivals in the first place: the romance and the characters!
Most of the time I was pretty bored while reading this book and I am sure I marked it so high (3 stars instead of 2) because I am too attached to Roman and Iris. Unfortunately, it did not deliver.
"Should I be surprised that I was falling in love with you a second time? Should I be surprised that your words found me here, even in the darkness? That I’ve been carrying your E. letters close to my heart like they are a shield to protect me?"
Letters of Enchantment
In conclusion... do not put pressure on books? Do not rush to publish the sequel? Do not have such high expectations when reading a series? Do not read series if you are like me? I am not sure what the conclusion is.
It's not a bad duology, but it's unbalanced and it feels. Your enjoyment of the series will depend greatly on what you are looking forward to when reading a fantasy book. The writing is good overall, somewhat lyrical, but when you shift the focus from the intimate romance and inner world of our main characters to the big war plot in the second book it diminishes everything that the first book accomplished and I did not feel the same connection to the characters. To put it bluntly, I couldn't stop reading the first book, while I was never looking forward to opening the second book!
"Write me a story where there is no ending, Kitt. Write to me and fill my empty spaces."
Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment #1) by Rebecca Ross was first published in April 2023 and Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment #2) was first published in December 2023
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