Information
Goodreads: Ruthless Vows
Series: Letters of Enchantment #2
Age Category: Young Adult
Source: Purchased
Published: December 2023
Official Summary
Two weeks have passed since Iris Winnow returned home bruised and heartbroken from the front, but the war is far from over. Roman is missing, and the city of Oath continues to dwell in a state of disbelief and ignorance. When Iris and Attie are given another chance to report on Dacre's movements, they both take the opportunity and head westward once more despite the danger, knowing it's only a matter of time before the conflict reaches a city that's unprepared and fracturing beneath the chancellor's reign.
Since waking below in Dacre's realm, Roman cannot remember his past. But given the reassurance that his memories will return in time, Roman begins to write articles for Dacre, uncertain of his place in the greater scheme of the war. When a strange letter arrives by wardrobe door, Roman is first suspicious, then intrigued. As he strikes up a correspondence with his mysterious pen pal, Roman will soon have to make a decision: to stand with Dacre or betray the god who healed him. And as the days grow darker, inevitably drawing Roman and Iris closer together…the two of them will risk their very hearts and futures to change the tides of the war.
Review
The sequel to Divine Rivals, Ruthless Vows picks up where the story left off, with our two protagonists on different sides of the war lines and readers wondering how they will find their way back to each other. The book mostly follows this plot, and to me it does feel more like a romance than a fantasy than Divine Rivals, even though the stakes should be higher in this book, considering the looming question of how the war will end.
The jacket copy dramatically speculates on how Iris's and Kitt's love for each other might change the course of a war, but I felt as if the story was more about them personally and then for their general concern for, you know, the whole country. Iris and Kitt are both good people, and they both have family and friends, and it turns out that they would be interested in stopping a war even if they weren't in love with each other, simply because they don't like people dying. So I did find the official summary of the book slightly misleading in terms of the overall vibe of the book. It's a romance, but I'm not sure their romance is really that entangled in the fate of the war, if that makes sense.
I speculated in my review for Divine Rivals that I thought this sequel would focus more heavily on the fantasy aspect of the story, and the answer is both yes and no. There were questions I had reading through both books that are, finally, to some degree addressed near the end of book two. So while I was happy to have some sort of world building explanation, it was still frustrating to spend so long wondering why exactly people were fighting for the good god Enva, beyond that they seemed convinced she WAS the good one, since no one seemed to know anything about her, no one had ever seen her, etc. There's a lot of talk about the gods in the books, but I still ended not feeling fully satisified I understand how gods and magic work in this world or what anyone in the world actually knows about either of these things.
Still, it's a fun read. Iris and KItt have great chemistry together, and I loved reading more about them. I also really enjoyed some new characters introduced in this book. I think Divine Rivals is a better book, but this is solid conclusion, and I would be interested in reading more from Ross.
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