After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again. But eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow just wants to hold her family together. Her mother is suffering from addiction and her brother is missing from the front lines. Her best bet is to win the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.
To combat her worries, Iris writes letters to her brother and slips them beneath her wardrobe door, where they vanish―into the hands of Roman Kitt, her cold and handsome rival at the paper. When he anonymously writes Iris back, the two of them forge a connection that will follow Iris all the way to the front lines of battle: for her brother, the fate of mankind, and love.
Shadow and Bone meets Lore in Rebecca Ross's Divine Rivals, an epic enemies-to-lovers fantasy novel filled with hope and heartbreak, and the unparalleled power of love.
Divine Rivals bets on execution over novelty, and mostly wins. The setup is familiar: rival journalists, anonymous letters, a war between gods who have woken up. Publishers Weekly called the plotting predictable and Kirkus admitted the tropes are clichéd. Both recommended it anyway, and the reason is plain on the page.
The letters are the heart of it. Writing is the closest thing to magic here, while the actual magic stays low and the gods squabble in the background. What you get instead is banter, shared craft and a melancholy wartime mood, with injuries and grief that Publishers Weekly called harrowing. It's a quieter book than the sword-and-dragon end of romantasy. Be warned about the ending: it's a cruel cliffhanger, so have the sequel ready.
The trade case is simple: the tropes are familiar, but the dreamy prose, nuanced characters and startling turns make the romance land. Readers were rapturous about the letters and the prose, and it won the 2023 Goodreads Choice Award for Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction, a reader-vote prize.
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Fantasy fiction for young adults and adults frequently merges high-stakes realm building with intimate personal conflict and romance. Rebecca Ross is a #1 New York Times, USA Today, and Sunday Times bestselling American fantasy novelist whose works span mythic duologies and standalone tales translated into thirty-one languages.
Ross grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. She initially studied English at Gainesville State College (now the University of North Georgia) before transferring to the University of Georgia, where she pursued nutrition and dietetics before earning her Bachelor of Arts degree in 2012. She made her publishing debut in 2018 with the young adult fantasy novel The Queen's Rising, launching a duology that concluded with The Queen's Resistance.
Following her debut, Ross expanded her bibliography with the fantasy duologies Letters of Enchantment and Elements of Cadence, alongside standalone novels such as Dreams Lie Beneath, Sisters of Sword & Song, and Wild Reverence. When she is not writing, she spends time in her garden in Northeast Georgia, where planting wildflowers often sparks story ideas. She resides in Northeast Georgia with her husband, her dog, and a flock of chickens.
Ross's storytelling is characterized by combining mythological lore with subtle, everyday magic and deeply human emotional stakes. Her narratives frequently examine rivalries between ancient clans, enchanted communication, musical folklore, and deep romantic partnerships tested by war and political intrigue. By grounding magical elements in quiet atmospheric details and personal resilience, her work explores how love and connection endure during times of conflict.
Letters of Enchantment
