Emma Skapetis's Reviews > Divine Rivals

3.95 stars
Oh my god this is heartbreaking 💔😭. Another awful cliffhanger to add to the list. Poor Iris and Roman. They deserved so much better than this. But their love story was so beautiful and I loved reading their letters to each other. RTC.
"It takes courage to let down your armor, to let people see you as you truly are. Sometimes I feel the same as you. I can't risk having someone behold me. But there is a small voice in the back of my mind that says, You will miss so much by being so guarded."
Divine rivals follows Iris Winnow and Roman Kitt who are two rivals journalists that are fighting for the same position at their workplace. But while they are doing this a war is brewing between two gods, Dacre and Enva. Iris desperately misses her brother Forest who is fighting in this war and she wishes she could help her alcoholic mother, who she returns home to every day. Roman meanwhile has everything that she does not. He is rich and has a secure future ahead of him while she is a poor girl that dropped out of school to support herself and her mother. During this time Iris receives letters from an unknown person who has been somehow receiving her letters to her brother. What Iris doesn't know is that this person is actually Roman who is still her rival at work. She can't deny that she feels a connection with him while also feeling this same connection when she sees Roman at The gazette. Meanwhile one day Iris's mother never comes home. The next day het body is discovered. Iris is of course completely devastated by this but a few days later she decides to leave Oath (her and Roman's hometown) to become a war correspondent and find her brother. She then meets Attie who is another young war correspondent and they very quickly become friends. After this they meet Marisol who is a woman that is offering them refuge while they learn how to do this unexpectedly challenging job. It's not long after this that Roman arrives at the place where they are all staying and Iris's feelings for him are reignited. But she still doesn't know that Roman is her mysterious letter writer, who she is falling for. Eventually she learns about this and Roman soon proposes to her. But the war is getting closer to them each day so will Iris and Roman be able to create a love and marriage that will be able to endure it?
I really enjoyed this book. It has really beautiful writing and I really loved Iris and Roman's letters to each other. They definitely added another layer to their connection. However this book kind of put me into a slump that I struggled to get out of so I found it a bit difficult to read at times. But this is definitely a fantasy romance that I would recommend even though it's not a huge favourite of mine (I didn't enjoy this quite as much as everyone else did). I loved Iris and Roman together and I hope we get to see a lot more of that in the second book, which is coming out really soon now. I can't wait to read that (when I have enough money to buy it lol. Christmas has made me go broke.) so that I can see the conclusion of Iris and Roman's story.