Wild Reverence by Rebecca Ross

 

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Fantasy, Romaance
Content: Moderately descriptive sex, Strong language

 

Born to the firelit domain of the underworld, Matilda is the youngest goddess of her clan, blessed with humble messenger magic. But in a land where gods kill each other for magic, Matilda must come of age sooner than most. She may be known to carry letters through the realms, but she also carries secrets of her one of them deadly, the other a mortal boy who dreams of her, despite the fact they have never met…

Ten years ago, Vincent of Beckett wrote to Matilda on the darkest night of his life – begging the goddess he befriended in dreams for aid. But his prayer went unanswered, forever hardening his heart against the gods. That is until the same goddess comes tumbling through his window, bearing a letter to change both their destinies. For Matilda and Vincent are tangled together by threads of fate and the promise of a future beyond dreams, one that might rewrite the dark, blood-soaked ways of the gods…or end them. 

 

After reading and loving A River Enchanted, and A Fire Endless, I was excited to read another book by Rebecca Ross. So it was a little unfortunate that I didn't love this one. In the beginning it took me a while to get into this. I think I was around 20 percent in before it grabbed me and I felt more engrossed in the story. I had mixed feelings about the main female character. I didn't like or understand why she got involved with one of the characters in the story the way she did. It was off-putting to me that she developed the kind of relationship that she did with this person. There were red flags all over the place. She even saw them but that didn't stop her. Also, it didn't make sense to me that she made the deal with the river god, especially considering who he was, when she could have just used her cloak to disappear and swim across? Why did she need to walk across the bottom of the river to get to the keep?

I also had mixed feelings about the main male character. As a romantic character he was fine but I felt like he was a weak leader and a very poor strategist. In fact everyone involved in the war in this book was a poor strategist, and believe me, if I'm saying this then that says something, because that is not my forte. We have the god of war in the story and I have no idea what role he really played in helping them besides killing a few people. He seemed very inept. This part of the story should have been built up more. None of the characters really thought through their actions enough or even used their god powers to the best of their advantage. This stuff really frustrated me. There's more I could say but I'm trying to avoid spoilers so I'll leave it there. 

There were things I did like about this book enough to give it 3 stars. I like some of the supporting characters a lot and I liked the way the romance came about between the two main characters, and once I got into the story it was hard to put it down. I also really enjoy this author's writing style. Will I read more Rebecca Ross after this? Yes, I'll still give her other books a try because I love the first two I read so much.

On another note, I wasn't really sure how to categorize this book. It reads rather YA and although this is a standalone story, it is connected to a YA series. However, the age of the characters and some of the other content has me categorizing it for adult readers. I wouldn't recommend this for younger YA readers.

 

“He chose me first,” I replied. “He dreamt of me before I knew of him. His soul found mine before I even knew how to look for his.”