Divine Rivals: why did the epistolary romantasy win over so many readers?

What Divine Rivals is

It's the first book in the Letters of Enchantment duology, by Rebecca Ross, originally published in 2023 by Wednesday Books. In Brazil, the Alt edition came out in 2023, translated by Sofia Soter.

The story follows Iris Winnow, eighteen, a journalist at a newspaper called the Oath Gazette. Iris's mother is dealing with an addiction and her brother is missing at the front; to keep the family together, Iris's best bet is to win the columnist slot.

The book won the 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards in the young adult fantasy and science fiction category and was nominated for the Locus Award in 2024. It was this title that took Rebecca Ross — who had been publishing fantasy for years — to the top of the lists.

The concept of the letters

To deal with her worries, Iris writes letters to her brother and slides them under the closet door. They disappear — and end up in the hands of Roman Kitt, her rival on the newspaper's newsroom staff.

Roman replies anonymously. That's the detail that sustains the whole book: the communication is born without identity, and every letter carries a cost — opening yourself to someone you don't yet know.

We can't quote passages from the letters here: their effect depends on the context in which they're written, and the pleasure of the read is precisely following the exchange in real time with the characters.

Rivals drawing closer

On paper, Iris and Roman compete for the same columnist slot. Off the page, they treat each other as competitors — he is described as cold and imposing, and she has to prove she deserves the space.

The enemies to lovers trope works here in layers: there is the professional rivalry, there is the distance between who writes and who answers, and there is the asymmetry of who knows whose identity.

It's this overlap — competition, anonymity and affection — that gives the romance its specific tension. None of the three works alone.

Epistolary romance

Epistolary romance is the kind where written communication is structure, not decoration. In Divine Rivals, the letters don't illustrate the feeling: they are the means by which it exists.

The form has a practical consequence for the reader. You read the letters knowing things the characters don't yet know about each other, and every revelation is delayed by design — the whole book is a slow burn built on paper.

It's also what lets the author skip the obvious: instead of a getting-closer scene, there's reading. Instead of a declaration, there's a reply. The space between the letters does the work that dialogue normally does.

Fantasy and war

Behind the romance there's a war: after centuries asleep, the gods are at war again, and humans are the troops on each side. The setting has the resonance of trench conflict, and the front line is a real place in the plot — not a decorative backdrop.

It's this double nature that defines the work: on one side, the intimacy of letters; on the other, the scale of divine war. The two levels feed each other — the closeness gains urgency because the world is at risk, and the war gains a face because there's a person waiting for letters.

Whoever comes looking only for romance will find the war an obstacle; whoever comes looking only for fantasy will find the romance at the center. The work succeeds precisely by not choosing one of the two.

Why the letter structure changes the experience

Three practical effects explain why the read differs from an ordinary fantasy.

• Controlled distance. The reader reads what the characters write, not what they think — and that limitation creates more tension than total access.
• Exchange rhythm. Every letter has question and answer, which creates micro-climaxes inside each chapter.
• Emotional memory. The correspondence becomes a record: you remember what was said before, and that gives weight to every new letter.

There's also the community factor: letters are the kind of construction readers like to comment on, annotate and reread — and that's where circulation on social media comes in, which our research records as one of the engines of the title's discovery.

Who the book works for

It works best for whoever likes romance front and center and doesn't mind waiting: the book is about waiting, and whoever needs constant action may feel the slow rhythm in the first chapters.

It also works for whoever wants fantasy with scale without losing intimacy — the war gives gravity, but the center is always the relationship. And for whoever enjoys professional rivalry, the newsroom dimension is almost a trope of its own.

It isn't the ideal entry point for someone who has never read fantasy: the worldbuilding is served in doses, but the divine war asks for some patience with invention.

How to continue after the first book

The duology closes with Ruthless Vows, originally published in 2023 and in Brazil via Alt in 2024, also translated by Sofia Soter. It's the ending — there is no third volume in the series.

The order is mandatory: Ruthless Vows picks up exactly where the first one stops, and reading out of order ruins the suspense.

If you want to follow the author after the duology, Rebecca Ross also signed the Elements of Cadence duology (A River Enchanted and A Fire Endless) and the trilogy that begins with The Queen's Rising — published in Brazil as A Ascensão da Rainha, by Galera Record. And if you'd rather stay in the universe of the reading that brought you here, Romantasy for beginners maps the next steps by tone.

Similar books

Here the axis of similarity is written communication as the structure of the romance, and the difference is the ground — the books below trade divine war for other settings.

• Same axis (letters as structure), lighter ground: the fake dating list includes works where the facade is also built through messages and appearances.
• Same axis, dark fantasy: The Serpent & the Wings of Night trades letters for tournament survival, keeping the closeness won in the midst of danger — no Brazilian edition confirmed by our research.
• Same ground (fantasy with romance), different mechanism: Fourth Wing uses proximity and rivalry instead of correspondence — see the Fourth Wing guide.
• Same author, other books: This Woven Kingdom trades divine war for Persian mythology — the piece compares it with Shatter Me.