Divine Rivals

Gr 9 Up–Aspiring newspaper columnists at the Oath Gazette, Iris and Roman are competing for the same job. Circumstance has pushed Iris’s family away, forcing her to stand alone on the edge of poverty, while Roman’s wealthy father pulls the strings to every aspect of his life. When Iris tries to write a letter to her brother on the front lines, it gets magically redirected to Roman, who writes back anonymously. When the final threads tying her to the city of Oath are cut, Iris quits her job and heads to the war front to discover what’s really happened to the soldiers who go missing there, including her brother. Ross paints a vivid historical picture with magic adding color to the worldbuilding without overtaking it. Iris is a heroine to root for as she braves the front lines, and Roman goes on his own journey towards independence; their characters are rich and well balanced in the first half of the novel, but once Iris goes to the front, Roman’s perspective falls away. The budding romance feels lopsided as Roman holds all the power at the start of their relationship, as a well-educated man from a wealthy, influential family who knows who he’s writing to. Reveals and secrets from Iris’s investigation add more plotlines to set up the sequel, at the expense of a full arc.