A review by karathagan
Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

fast-paced

5.0

Chosen for a Kindle challenge, I was pleased to find my first 5 star of 2024 in Divine Rivals. This book was amazing. Beautiful prose and thoughtful characters and sweet relationships, good lore and some interesting settings/environments. A poor girl working as a journalist is competing for a promotion. Her brother is off to war fighting for a resurrected god against another (angrier) resurrected god,

and her mother dies early on.

She uses a magical typewriter to write and send letters to a mysterious stranger.  Eventually, the journalist quits her newspaper job and goes off to the front lines as a war correspondent. Her previous coworker and formal rival shows up. They're changing their relationship bit by bit. Placing in-world awe inspiring writing in a book is difficult, and I usually groan at the writing that other characters are amazed by. This, however, was reminiscent of Emily of New Moon - elegant, and emotional, and magical. The correspondence was enthralling, the romance enchanting. Loved it so much.