This final book in the Thistle Grove series made me want to read them all over again! It’s sad that the series is ending. “Rise & Divine” brings Dasha and Ivy back together, and joins all the families in saving Thistle Grove from a surprising foe. The witchy vibes are so good with this entire series, but especially this book. Lana made me fall back in love with Thistle Grove and I can't get enough of these stories. The romance is a bit spicier than the other books, and that’s a good thing! I'm crushed this is the last one, but so happy I got to be on this magical ride. The world building just kept getting better, and it was nice to be back in the world learning about the town. I do wish that this was a dual POV. I really wanted some chapters from Ivy’s perspective. It always helps when a romance is dual POV because you can get both sides of the relationship. I hope we get more books from Thistle Grove in the future but if not, the way the series ended and the fact that all the previous characters played a part was perfect. Thanks to Netgalley, Lana Harper and Berkley Publishing Group for an e-arc in exchange for my thoughts. This is the perfect series for the fall and I will probably re-read them all again around Halloween to get into the spooky spirit! I can’t wait to read Lana Harper’s next book.

Welcome back to Thistle Grove for the last time. Such a great end to a great series. I love that each book was completely different as far as family, relationships and complete love for the town. I also love the diversity of relationships. Dasha and Ivy are taking a second chance in this last rom, sad to see it end.

Read This Book If…you love a small town witchy series!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Rise and Divine by Lana Harper

Genre: paranormal queer romance
Series: The Witches of Thistle Grove # 5
Spice Level: 3/5🌶, 1-2 explicit
Setting: small magical town in Illinois
POV: single, 1st person, past tense
Tropes: second chance romance

My Thoughts:
Overall, this was a very satisfying ending to this witchy series! I did find it a little plot-forward and the romance portion almost felt too easy. For a second chance romance, I expect there to be pining or groveling but it felt like they just sort of fell together.

There were some beautiful moments centered around light vs. dark and how depression and grief can affect a person. But again, I wanted more personal growth as a couple, not just our main character.

As for the plot, the mystery and thrilling aspects were fun and I loved our villain and the various reveals woven throughout.

You absolutely must read this series in order - I wish I had done a bit of recap because there are so many characters and so much lore mentioned in this book!

Memorable Quote: “Grief could be like that, hollowing you out enough to make you starved for crumbs you could barely see, much less taste.”

Thank you to the publisher for the advanced copy!

"To save both her town and the woman who loves her against all odds, a witch haunted by loss must reckon with her turbulent past, in the next magical romance in the Witches of Thistle Grove series by New York Times bestselling author Lana Harper.

Even in a family of chaotic necromancers, Daria "Dasha" Avramov has always been an outlier. An event planner at the Arcane Emporium occult megastore, Dasha is also a devil eater: a rare necromantic witch with an affinity for banishing demons and traversing the veil, the boundary between this realm and the next.

Still grieving the loss of both beloved parents years ago, and plagued by a dangerous obsession with the world beyond the veil, Dasha is fiery yet guarded, an expert at dodging commitment. Her worst regret is a devastating breakup with the wise, empathetic, and sensual Ivy Thorn, her event-planning counterpart at Honeycake Orchards, and probably the love of Dasha's life. Dasha has managed to break Ivy's heart not once, but twice, so things are more than a little tense between them.

When they're thrown together to plan the Cavalcade - a month-long festival celebrating Thistle Grove's ceremonial founding with dazzling spectacles held by the town's witch families - Dasha hopes that the third time might be the charm, while Ivy refuses to let herself be hurt again. As they confront the pain and passion lingering between them, Dasha and Ivy must also stand against an otherworldly threat unlike anything Thistle Grove has faced before."

Oh, what is with me falling for books with necromancers lately?

Rise & Divine takes readers on a final trip back to beloved Thistle Grove. I will never tire of the magical, queer, and idyllic world that Harper has created.

This book follows Daria (Dasha) Avramov and Ivy Thorn as they rekindle their romance and work together to save Thistle Grove from destruction. Readers were briefly introduced to the contentious dynamic between Dasha and Ivy during installment 4, In Charm’s Way, when Deliliah enlists their help with her love.

My thoughts:
I hate to say goodbye to this series; I adore the magical, queer, and idyllic world that Harper has created. As much as I have loved my time in Thistle Grove, this final installment didn’t provide the closure I would have liked to end the series. Frankly, I found it disappointing.

The romance in this book left me wanting for more. Rise & Divine is written from Dasha’s perspective. The first few chapters are spent on her past and setting up the plot for the suspense part of the story. Our first mention of Ivy is at 17%. Second chance isn’t my favorite trope, but I think for it to work well you need dual POV, flashbacks or a combination of both. With single POV, no flashbacks and a late start to their romance within the book, I felt we were missing the critical foundation of their relationship. I didn’t feel as invested in them as a couple as I have to previous pairings. They also get physical quickly, partly because of extenuating circumstances, but still. I think their second chance romance had a lot of potential, but overall, it felt unfinished.

Rise & Divine is also extremely heavy; there are strong themes of addiction, depression, grief and suicidal ideation. Dasha is a devil eater who can transcend the veil (purgatory/ a version of hell/ a dark dimension- we don’t get clarification and Dasha is unsure as well). After losing both her parents, she becomes obsessed with visiting the other side to numb her pain. She becomes addicted to the feeling and requires intervention from her sister, stepmom and Elena Avramov. Dasha is in recovery like any other addict who has stopped using.

I ended up rating this book 3 stars (which pains me to say!). I went into this book looking for closure to one of my favorite paranormal series. I was hoping for an uplifting, romance centric end to the bewitching Thistle Grove series with life updates from past couples. As a reader, I don’t think I got the closure I was looking for, but I still love Thistle Grove and Harper’s cozy and atmospheric writing voice.

Thank you to Berkley Romance for an early copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

The conflict in this was very interesting, but I found some of the suicidal ideation/mental health rep parts difficult to read. It took away from some of my enjoyment in this. If you like witchy romance with an interesting conflict and darker themes, this one is for you!

I’ve read the whole Witches of Thistle Grove series, and I have to say Rise and Divine is definitely in my top two. I’ve loved this series so much, so it was bittersweet that this was the story to say goodbye to Thistle Grove. One thing I will say about the romance, is that it was so nice to see that it was a given – like even with the heated past and everything going on, you could truly feel their bond. There are enough angsty stories out there, so it was nice that yes, there was romance, but it fed beautifully into the story/plot overall (that the focus wasn’t them, but the them was very much a key to saving everything). I hope Lana Harper gives us something just as magical in the future.

4.75 stars
🌶🌶🌶

My favorite of the series, this book is a Sapphic witchy second chance romance that tackles grief and a literal god of darkness.

Dasha is a devil eater who has struggled against the darkness since her mother died. As a side effect, she broke Ivy's heart. Twice. Dasha's been working on herself, and maybe she's ready to let Ivy in for real this time. Especially when a big scary figure threatens the town.

I was hoping Dasha and Ivy's story would be from Ivy's perspective, but now I'm glad it was Dasha's. Her grief and vulnerability were so relatable, and I love the way this story wraps up the series.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the opportunity to read and review!

It is always a treat to return to Thistle Grove, so I couldn’t wait to dive into Rise and Divine, but I am so sad this is the last one in the series. Daria ‘Dasha’ Avramov is a devil eater, a rare witch with an affinity to banish demons and crossing over the veil, and her biggest regret is losing Ivy Thorn, but a Thistle Grove festival throws them back together forcing them to confront their feelings again, and when an unknown threat enters Thistle Grove, they have to stand together to save their town. This is definitely a heavier read; Dasha deals with deep grief and loneliness. She is brave and fierce and powerful and such a wonderful main character. I had a hard time with the beginning of this one though, there’s a lot of timeline jumping to make the second chance storyline work, so that felt like a lot to comb through. As a romance, I don’t think it fully developed, I would’ve liked more moments to get them back together since Ivy seemed so against it in the beginning. But I did like the intimacy of this pair and the play with light and dark. And it’s steamy and sexy too, Ivy and Dasha are wonderful as a pair, and Ivy is so strong and supportive too. Magically, I think this is such a cool fantasy story. I thought all the magic systems were so well developed and the conflict was so interesting. I truly have loved my time in Thistle Grove and this was a wonderful final installment to a beautiful small town of witches. Sincerely going to miss this one!

It’s no secret that I’m a huge, huge fan of Thistle Grove and its witches–and an even bigger fan of romances that are set up by a previous book. When we briefly met Dasha Avramov in In Charm’s Way and learned of her messy breakup with the main character of that book’s best friend, I had a feeling we were being prepared for something good. And in that, I was not disappointed: the relationship between necromancer Dasha and green witch Ivy is complicated and fraught, not least of all because Dasha, due to a series of under-addressed traumas, broke Ivy’s heart not once but twice. The feelings that they still have for each other loom large from the very start, and I was excited to know how they were going to repair what seemed so insurmountable. I also was intrigued by the book’s background plot of Thistle Grove hosting a monthlong celebration of its founding (a celebration which for some reason only happens every twenty years) amid strange turbulence on Lady’s Lake, the source of Thistle Grove’s magic.

I think, as usual, the strongest part of this book is the ways in which Harper gets more and more inventive with the magic and the lore. This world has definitely expanded in significant ways since 2021’s Payback’s a Witch, and that makes it feel more lived-in and real. I enjoyed learning more about the ways in which the Avramovs’ powers have terrifying real-world applications, and the ways in which magic is still capable of being surprising, even in a town founded by witches and populated by their ancestors. The relationship disappointed me a little bit–I felt like things were tied up too neatly and quickly, especially compared to where they started off–but I still liked Ivy and Dasha a lot, and the ways in which Dasha was determined to do and be better to be worthy of Ivy. You could also argue that part of this story is an analog for someone suffering from addiction: after the grief of losing both her parents, Dasha becomes, for lack of a better word, addicted to her magical ability to travel to the other side of the veil between the living and the dead, and the emotional high it provides her. This inevitably leads to her deterioration, and to some stupid decisions that jeopardize her relationship, and while she is in recovery at the start of the book, it was interesting to see the ways previous bad decisions (plus living with grief and addiction) still haunted her and needed work to heal from.

All in all, another solid offering to a series that I’m going to miss terribly! In my next life, I want to be a Thistle Grove witch.

This was a beautiful end to the series that I never wanted to end! I do feel we could have given a few characters a little more space on the page, but that is the way of the genre, romances tend to focus nearly exclusively on the main couple so I can't complain too much.
Each one of these books deals with a different mental health issue, and some portray it more openly and accurately than others, but this one I feel portrayed its issue most realistically and compassionately.
It was full of mistakes, and recovery, and forgiveness.

Content warnings for: coercive seduction, addiction, muggy behavior from a main lead, and very very very very very very very very hot wlw spicy scenes

Thank you to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review, and most of all to our lord and savior Lana Harper for writing this series.

Thank you, Lana. These books will be on my shelves for the rest of my life.

Rise and Divine by Lana Harper is a captivating addition to the beloved Thistle Grove series. As a fan, I was both thrilled by the abundance of content and saddened by the realization that the series has come to an end.

I love this series and I love Thistle Grove. Rise and Divine really went out with a bang. And it can’t be the last book in the series, whatever the acknowledgements may say! I need Gareth’s redemption story as the head of family Blackmoore (we only had one Blackmoore book) and I need Linden’s story as Emmy’s bestie (or maybe Gareth and Linden as a second chance romance…). I love Thistle Grove so much and am going to miss it greatly. Lana Harper is an autoread so bring on what’s next! Excellent book, excellent series, excellent author. Highly recommend to all, not just lovers of all things witchy.

It a good addition to the series but I felt like the pacing was a little off. I don't think we knew enough about Dasha and Ivy from the previous books for it to make sense to thrust us right into the middle of their relationship. It felt like it moved too fast and came out of nowhere.

Saying goodbye to Thistle Grove is shockingly difficult. This world has been one of my favorites to explore. Probably because the idea of a cool magical town in Illinois (where I'm from) is fascinating to me and I would move there in a heartbeat. That said, I sometimes don't always find the stories that happen within Thistle Grove (mostly the romance aspect) to be a 10/10 which isn't great if it's a romance book. This final installment was no different. My favorite part was the world followed by the main plot and then the romance was dead last for me.

Dasha and Ivy's second chance romance felt kind of rushed and like I had no reason to root for them. My favorite part of a romance is the yearning and there's just none of that here. One minute they're broken up, the next they're back together and in love. That just wasn't it for me. It's fine if a romantic subplot doesn't work but, in my opinion, since this is a romance it should be better and I'd have liked more reason for the characters to get back together

I loved Dasha and the parallels between her struggle with wanting to return to the otherside of the veil paralleled with addiction. Ivy I felt like I hardly knew and this made it hard for me to root for the romance. The whole concept of devil eating was super cool.

The world continues to be my favorite part of this series and I'm truly sad to see it go. The witchy vibes are perfect and reading this series during spooky season is a great idea. Just set expectations for the romance. If you're here for cute magical small town and witchy vibes, you'll enjoy it

3.75 rounded up

I only read the first book in the series, and as it is with a lot of series like this - they are interconnected standalones so you don’t have to read them in order - which is true. So I thought I would be okay. But as I was reading I PERSONALLY felt like I was missing something and I don’t quite have enough time to go back and read 3 other books right now.

With that said I do like what I’ve read. I love the lgbtqia rep! Sapphic witches are perfect!!!

Thanks to Berkley for the ARC

Dnf @ 30%

Maybe it was the darkness of this book, but I just couldn’t get into it. I enjoyed the first two books in this series. The last ones have been less than.

Thank you to the publisher for an advance reading copy.
Loved this series and this book was so fun. I am sad that there isn't another one coming in this series but I'm looking forward to whatever Lana Harper writes next.

Love a witchy book when the main character has a troubled past, it just feels more real even tho it’s witchcraft! The cover was what caught my eye and the colors were stunning! Dasha and Ivy were perfect characters that made me not want to put this book down

The latest books following the witches of Thistle Grove follow a second-chance romance of two witches who could not be any more different. Daria Avramov a death eater, who has the ability which leads to an addiction to slip into a void of darkness which allows her to feel a euphoric high, and Ivy Throne, whose magic is pure green and full of life. Daria must overcome this addiction to not only get Ivy back but to fight the literal demon that is slipping out of the void, and only she is capable of doing it.