I was really scared of this book, and especially reading it I thought it was going to end tragically. I did not feel sad at the end, I am also really awed by the epilogue and how it ties into Divine Rivals. This also had an amazing father/daughter duo that I was not expecting.

A must read for anyone who liked Divine Rivals. A young goddess finds navigating the courts of the gods and the human realm extremely challenging when fate, love, and death all seem to be at odds.

I love Rebecca Ross’s writing style. I think her prose is beautiful and flows exceptionally well. I was very hesitant when starting this book because it is set in the world of Divine Rivals (before those events) and the weakest part of those books were the gods. Only to find that in this book, the gods are fascinating, multi-layered, devious, and scary. Just what a pantheon should be. The character work was excellent (growth from multiple main characters) and the plot kept me hooked from start to finish. If I had a minor complaint, it would be the predictability at points, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

I would gladly read another book (or 10) about these gods. But to have a stand-alone this good was a treat. There was an excellent balance between character building, plot, and romance. Rebecca Ross remains the gold standard when it comes to Romantasy.

I ate this like an Underling god recieving a prayer. It was delicious and I want more!

It was such a pleasure to be returning to this world of Divine Rivals. I loved that duology, so when I saw that Rebecca Ross was returning to this world with a story from before that time centering on the gods I knew I was going to read it!

We start of witnessing the birth of Matilda and her constellation of six stars. She is to be the herald of the realms, a lower mid-tier goddess born of two realms. Underling and Skyward. Caught between the two, not really belonging to either. I related to watching her struggle with this aspect of her birth a lot, it reminded me a lot of the modern day complexities that arise because you are biracial (enter me, a biracial lady).

She meets Vincent in his dreams when they were kids, starting the entanglement of their threads of fate there. Unfortunately some things happen that make a gap of time where they grow up, but they meet again when Vincent needs her help the most. There is a trope(spoiler of trope can be seen at bottom) here that happens that I was not expecting but ABSOLUTELY LOVED READING. It was well done in my opinion, and made a lot of sense.

There is a lot of Underling/Skyward political world building, and of you read Divine Rivals and wanted to understand more about how the gods were you get that with this book. But you don't have to read the Divine Rivals duology to enjoy this book!

Overall I finished this in a day and would read it again!

SPOILER TROPE: fake dating