Waiting for the gods? Keep waiting ...

The premise of Divine Rivals draws you right in: in a fictionalized yet still familiar version of England, two ancient gods, Dacre and Enva, wage war on each other with mythical creatures but also vast armies of humans in a conflict much like one of our World Wars. The war provides the backdrop for Iris and Roman, two rival journalists seeking the same promotion while Iris desperately tries to reach her brother, who is on the front.

The novel is well-written, but if you're powering through, hoping to get an enormous battle between Dacre and Enva, you aren't gonna get it. The majority of the novel follows Iris and her burgeoning romance with Roman, the human toll of the war casting a pall over the city. In that regard, the novel is clever. The book very much reads like a historical fiction novel, and could easily be about World Wars I or II were it not for the occasional reference to the gods. In that regard, author Rebecca Ross has done a superb job cloaking a fantastical concept with the ordinary. The novel, however, mostly avoids the combat the reader might be wanting to read about in favor of the human drama, focusing on Iris as she becomes a war correspondent, continues to try and locate her brother, Roman's arranged marriage with a young woman he doesn't want to marry, and then, ultimately, on the romance between Iris and Roman. The action and appearance of the gods isn't until the end of the book, and given the fact that Ross has created an interesting concept, I would have liked more world-building and would have loved more of the gods to appear throughout the book and not just the epilogue.

The enemies-to-lovers trope is a tad predictable, as is the big reveal at the end, and the novel very clearly serves as the opening act of its sequel, Ruthless Vows. The novel works as a romantacy, but could have used a bit more action and background for fans of the fantasy genre.