In case you’re new around here, Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross was one of my favorite reads of 2023, so I was pretty pumped to get my hands on the second half of this duology. I was so pumped, I dragged my brand new mother-in-law out into the rainy cold first thing the morning after Christmas to get Ruthless Vows. Yolo.

If you haven’t read Divine Rivals [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM], then this is your fair warning for spoilers for that book.

Go read it and then come back.

Ok. Ruthless Vows [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] picks up two weeks after the ending of Divine Rivals. Iris is back at the newspaper in Oath and there’s no sign of Roman. She doesn’t know if he died in the battle or if he’s hurt somewhere. Roman is with Dacre underground and without his memories, at first. As they come back to him and the letters return, he must decide who is going to betray.

And that’s all I’ll say so I don’t spoil too much.

Overall, it’s just as beautifully written as the first book. However, it felt much slower paced. It took me a lot longer to read this one compared with the first book. I really thought the loss of memory would play more into the plot, but it was resolved really quickly. It’s still solid, but not quite to the level I wanted it to be after the amazingness that was the first book.

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