Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

26 reviews

abicaro17's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Holy shit..... Well Rebecca Ross it's on sight girl! Iris is a reporter competing for a columnist spot against fellow reporter, Roman. As Iris writes letter to her brother who's away at war, she tucks them away inside her closet. These letter end up in the hands of her rival, Roman, who begins to write her back. As war tears across the country and propaganda and misinformation reigns supreme, Iris and Roman create a magical friendship through letters. I adore this story! It's just magical enough to be not realistic but not too crazy as to be hard to understand and follow. Iris is a strong and yet logical and likable character. She makes normal choices and thinks through her issues before jumping into action. Roman is adorable and this conclusion makes me mad af. Like gotta go read Ruthless Vows brb. My only issue with this book is that the start is slow and the world building isn't explained very well until later. 
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readyforit's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

2⭐️0.25🌶️(nearly fade to black, nondescript)
If you are a person who never asks questions and can just accept the information you’re given, you may enjoy this book. The author does a pretty terrible job of world-building and explaining the magic system. We assume the story takes place on our earth, but the country isn’t named. Idk if it was meant to be England or a completely fictional land altogether. They have different names for months and days of the week, but the order of them isn’t explained. The magic of the typewriters is never explained (why is the wardrobe necessary?), nor the magical buildings (until book 2, and even then it’s not really that important). I think they could’ve cut half of the more mundane stuff and used that to either combine it with the sequel, or do a lot more world-building. 

This book would’ve done better as a historical fiction book, without marketing it as fantasy or romance, since it has very little of either. The war was obviously based off of WWI, so the author should’ve just set it up as that, and added the magical typewriter element for fun. Also, this book was marketed as an enemies/rivals to lovers story and we never got that. It’s more like acquaintances to lovers, or a workplace romance. Tbh I didn’t think that the MCs had very good chemistry and I didn’t understand why they made some of their choices. I did think some of their letters were sweet but the whole storyline of Roman
waiting to tell iris that he was the anonymous person she was sending letters to until she had developed feelings  for him, both as her coworker and her penpal, rubbed me the wrong way. Like the author was trying to force a love triangle or miscommunication trope.
Then they got married all of the sudden, just so they could spend the night together, which made sense after I found out the author is religious.


I wanted to DNF at 20% and 50% but this book came so highly recommended, with many people saying it is their new favorite book. I was so bored the whole time. Don’t feel guilty for DNFing, you won’t miss much. I’m sorry to say that even the audiobook narrators sounded bored, and who could blame them?
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ju_harue's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Uma escrita envolvendo combinada com uma história maravilhosa. Agora entendi (e endosso) o hype. Foi tudinho. Em certos momentos me lembrou um pouco a história de O Estranho Sonhador, então li empolgada.
A forma como a magia se mistura com o cotidiano dos personagens é muito interessante. E eu amei que a ideia norteadora da autora - descrita nos agradecimentos - foi pra frente de forma magistral. Fiquei completamente rendida aos protagonista e demais personagens. E já estou empolgada pra ler o segundo volume.
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melissaslibraryy's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Roman Kitt my beloved, you hold my heart in your hands <3
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picaresquedreamer's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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katelynndzindzio's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Roman C. Kitt and Iris Winnow are rivals, competing for the columnist position at the Gazette only to have their worlds completely changed. Iris's brother goes to war, her mom died, and Roman gets engaged. Roman wins the columnist position and Iris quits, determined to find her brother she heads to the war zone. All the while, Iris has been sending letters from her magical typewriter... Unknowingly, not to her brother. 
Kitt and winnow's journey is magical to say the least. Through a series of unfortunate events they fall in love. Can true love save them? 
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sierrabowers's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I thought this was a good book! I will definitely be reading the second one and I’m excited to see the world building and character development changes in the second as well. I only rated 4 stars because I feel like the “hidden identity enemies to lovers” trope is overused at this point but it was still a good book! 
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teabrewer's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Everything in this book is written so vividly. The universe is imersive, extremely. Every scent, texture and visual is so real that it is impossible not to feel that you in every scene. Every emotion the author wanted you to feel, you would. To the point where I had to put the book dawn a few times closer to the end because I'm simply to equiped to process all these feelings. The romance is beautiful, moving and made me sight and (scream with the book) several times. The story does not hesitate to show war like it is but it doesn't make everything depressing and hopeless either. I loved this book with all my heart and I hope so, so much that the sequel is just as good. I can't wait for it.
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kds247's review

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

This book was quite entertaining. It had decent world building and I loved the letters sent between the characters. The romance was also fun and I thought the story got better as the book went on. However, I felt like the author had a tough time with the delivery of exposition with characters, instead of it being spread out evenly in the story, having multiple pages  of a singular monologue to explain everything which I found very bulky. I also think she had trouble finding the characters’ unique voices at times. At certain points in the book I had trouble distinguishing who was saying what, especially quick dialogue between Roman and Iris. Though overall, it’s a solid book.
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shellbell_04's review

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I liked the story, but I felt some of the larger plot points could’ve been longer and more descriptive 
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