Wild Reverence by Rebecca Ross follows Matilda, a young immortal who is the herald of the gods. This means that she, unlike her fellow immortals, can travel between the Underling, the Skyward, and the mortal realms. She spends her days ferrying messages back and forth, and her nights in dreams, where a young human man named Vincent speaks to her. However, the happy nights end too soon, as drama amongst the gods heightens and Matilda is forced to stay confined to one realm for years. When she at last emerges, she finds the humans are in peril, and that Vincent is in need of divine assistance. So she allies herself with him, even though after all this time, he doesn’t trust her as he once did. But Matilda is determined to help, and old feelings start to reignite—even though it might be too late, and the dangers they face might be coming for them.

I quite liked the Divine Rivals duology, and so I was intrigued by this book, which is set in that same universe (albeit many years earlier). However, due to it being a prequel, you could easily start with this one if you wanted.

This is a decent story, with Ross’s signature lovely prose. I like how she describes things, and how she forms this pantheon of deities interacting with the mortal realm in ways that only serve them. It feels very capital-C Classical, which I enjoy. I also liked reading about Matilda’s origin story, as the child of both the Skyward and Underling realms, and how that gives her certain abilities that other immortals don’t have. Those scenes were entertaining.

However, overall, I felt that this book didn’t have enough forward momentum. There’s certainly a lot of drama and peril, but it seemed to be that it was all happening peripherally to the two main characters. Rather than pushing toward an end goal of their own volition, Matilda and Vincent seemed to just react to things that happened to them instead. And that in turn made me feel way less invested in the plot.

Further, there is a scheme between those two shortly after their reunion as adults where they decide to pretend to be married, in order to dupe Vincent’s uncle-turned-enemy who’s besieging the fortress. But to me, this made no sense in the way that it was executed. It lasted for what felt like a mere couple chapters, then was abandoned as other plot points came up. So what was the point? Why couldn’t they have simply announced that Matilda, a literal goddess, had made a political alliance with Vincent? That would have had the same result of intimidating their foe. I really thought that the ploy would be a bigger deal and matter for longer. As it is, it’s one of the worst contrivances of the book. There are better ways to work in the “only one bed” trope; I know because I’ve read them before.

I also felt like Matilda and Vincent’s romance, while sweet, didn’t have a solid enough foundation. While they’ve known each other since they were very young, those meetings only occurred in a handful of dreams, in which Vincent didn’t even know Matilda’s real name. Their meeting as teens did serve to strengthen their bond, but they were then immediately separated for about a decade. So when they at last reunite, I felt that they were basically strangers again with only vague fond memories of each other. Thus, the progression of their relationship seemed way too fast. I would have liked to see more interaction between them in general to feel that their shift to being totally in love was believable. At most, I felt like they liked each other and found each other attractive, but in love? Not quite.

Romance aside, I should bring up the best and worst characters. The latter being Warin, the god of spring, who serves as an antagonist. He’s so despicable and works as a formidable foe, though the scenes featuring him were kind of a chore since I disliked him so much. However, then there’s Bade, the god of war, who’s something of a godfather for Matilda. This is the best relationship in the book, and the most interesting one. I really enjoyed their rapport and how Bade’s care for her shaped his journey and hers equally. The rest of the gods I could honestly take or leave (with the exception of Bade’s wife), but Bade rocks.

In the end, though, I think I wanted more from Wild Reverence. I wanted more development of the romance, and I wanted more proactive action from the protagonists. However, it was cool to see the origin of the world we got to know in Divine Rivals, and I still was entertained. I just don’t think this is the best book that Ross has written, though you might think differently and that’s fine! Also, the audiobook (narrated by George Weightman, Hannah van der Westhuysen, and Rebecca Norfolk) is great.

Wild Reverence is available now!