Divine Rival and Ruthless Vows

 Divine Rival and Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross, 777 pages.

Iris Winnow and Roman Kitt are from two different worlds, even though they grew up in the same city. To Iris the newspaper columnist position they are competing for would mean everything for her ability to take care of her struggling family. For Roman it's a matter of desperately trying to earn his rich father's approval. But when they start magically exchanging magical letters they soon begin to fall in love with the person on the other sides of the letters, with whom they can be more genuinely themselves than with anyone else.

But long-buried gods have woken and the country is plunged into war, a war that they can't stay away from even as the city of Oath tries its best to pretend it doesn't effect them. The two get pulled deeper into the heartbreak and terror of the divine war as they desperately hope for some sort of peaceful future together. 

These books flowed so easily into one another that it felt best to give them a single review. I was really impressed by the prose of these books. It's always a bit of a danger telling the reader that your characters are excellent writers, especially when you let the audience read examples, but in this case I absolutely felt the love of language throughout. I also found books ones and two to be delightfully mirrored in a way that added depth to both (in a rare case where I like the sequel slightly better than the original. On a more personal note, rivals-to-lovers is one of my preferred relationship dynamics, and I found myself very bought into the central romance of the series, and I was cheering for them the whole time. I was a little surprised with just how much I enjoyed these books, and with how quickly I devoured them. 

Chronicles of a Radical Hag (With Recipes)

Chronicles of a Radical Hag (With Recipes) by Lorna Landvik (2019) 301 pages

Haze (short for Hazel) has written a newspaper column for over 50 years, when she has a major stroke. As she lies in a coma in her hospital bed, Susan McGrath, the newspaper's publisher, decides to re-run Haze's old columns while Haze is out, and brings in her own teenage son Sam to choose which columns to run as part of his summer job. Sam has been out of sorts with his parents' separation, and has other issues to contend with, but he soon gets drawn into reading Haze's columns. As others read the columns (and sometimes the letters to the editor that came in response to those early columns), they get drawn in as well. Haze had a chatty, empathetic way of looking at the world and its events, on both a large scale and a micro scale. She had her detractors as well. Old neighbors, co-workers, her nurse, classes of high school students, friends, and friends of friends all seem to find something to talk about in these old musings of Haze. And in some special ways, many of these people are changed.

That's the Lorna Landvik I have always appreciated. I thought it was a great story.

Girls' Poker Night

Girls' Poker Night by Jill A. Davis (2002) 227 pages


Ruby Capote is a feature writer in Boston who decides to change up her life, which includes weaning away from Doug, her sweet but sometimes annoying boyfriend of a few years, and getting a new job. She persistently stakes out a New York newspaper, eventually sending copies of her columns along with a 6-pack of beer to the editor, getting the interview and nailing the job.

These big moves don't automatically fix Ruby's life. Family relationship issues from her past keep resurfacing. Her relationship with Michael, her editor, is tricky; she really likes him, but isn't sure about the signals she's getting from him. Meanwhile, once a week, a diverse group of her friends gather at her apartment for poker and talk.

For a light, fast read, there's plenty of substance in this story.