Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the gifted arc!! I absolutely loved being back on the world of Divine Rivals, and I’ll forever be obsessed with Rebecca Ross’ writing. Although this takes place about 600 years before the letters of enchantment duology, there’s so many Easter eggs! While this story is a standalone and you don’t NEED to have read divine rivals, I think having that duology as background enhanced the reading experience.
This book had such an interesting take on gods and goddesses. I loved learning the divine lore in this world. I also like how gods and goddesses weren’t all-powerful and had limitations and weaknesses with their power. I loved the concept of constellations and how power moves between the divine.
I do wish the romance had been stronger in this. Because of their circumstances, they had met once in person as children and then in dreams that Matilda read after the fact. As adults, they barely got to spend any time together due to Matilda being pulled way for divine business. So I think I would’ve just liked more interactions between Matilda and Vincent in order to make me really FEEL their love.
Personally, the relationship between Matilda and Bade was the absolute highlight of this book. Their scenes throughout the book were my favorites

Thank you to Rebecca Ross, the publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC!

I haven't read the Divine Rivals duology yet (I know I know, but I missed that part where this was the same world.) But this book was BEAUTIFUL. I wasn't sure if Rebecca Ross was overhyped but after Wild Reverence, I can tell you, she is worth ALL THE HYPE.

Oh, how I love this book.
This is a prequel (hundreds of years before) to the Divine Rivals/Ruthless Vows duology. Matlida is a goddess born unlike any they have seen before. She shows up in the dreams of a mortal, Vincent, and they become friends as children. This also shows us the beginnings of Drace and Enva.
Ross has beautiful, lyrical writing. Her worlds and characters are beautiful, flawed, and perfect. It was a slower start, but eventually I could not put this down. If you have loved Ross' stories she's written so far, this continues to be a must read. AND THAT EPILOGUE! LOVE!
Thank you Thank you Thank you to Rebecca Ross, the publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC.

An enchanting, unique prequel to divine rivals & ruthless vows! ✨
If you want to know more about the Gods and Godess that wreak havoc on Iris’ world, this book is for you!

⭐️“We had been waiting for that divine to make their presence known to us, to claim those stars.”⭐️

Matilda is a strong, beautiful, one of a kind herald godess, who brings together the underling, mortal and skyward worlds! 🔥
Vincent is our unexpected and uniquely handsome knight in shining armour, who is thrust into a role he did not want and has a dreamlike friend, who turns into a stars written lover 💗

“ I pray that my days will be long at your side. Let me fill and satisfy every longing in your soul. May your hand be in mine, by sun and by night. Let our breaths twine and our blood become one, until our bones return to dust. Even then, may I find your soul still sworn to mine”. 🥵

Matilda and Vincent’s lives unexpectedly cross over the span of 20 plus years in this unique world where the gods and goddesses fight for stars and power.

The weaving of the threads of their lives kept me on my toes, wanting to find out what was in store for the gods world and the mortal world.
Each relationship during this war, was real and one of a kind, full of love, heartbreak and betrayal.

“War only makes love flame brighter, defiant. It seems to bloom from the bloodshed you leave behind, unfurling from the most unlikely of places. From the broken seams of the world. From the graves and the anguish and the fear you inspire.”

The connection to divine rivals in the epilogue was everything we wanted 🥰

I’m curious to see if we will get a story of Dacre and Enva, so much to explore now that this world has been opened!

Thank you to NetGalley, St.Martins Press and Saturday Books for the eARC 💕

Rebecca’s writing is absolutely stunning. The way she strings together words so brilliantly you become fully immersed in the world and story. I will read absolutely anything Rebecca writes.

I loved Divine Rivals, but I found Ruthless Vows disappointing.

Let me just say, Wild Reverance had me in a choke hold. I was so enthralled with the first 2 acts of the book. I LOVED learning more about the Skywards and the Underlings. I think it is because I've always been interested in a pantheon. The world building really fleshed out the godly realms and characters, and I was hear for it.

Going into Act 3/second half of the story, I found that the story started to lose me. I wasn't interested in delving into human squabbles. This could have been because of the mood I was in - I'm a very big mood reader.

Overall though, I feel like the beginning really carried my vibes thru this one so 4/5.

I have never felt so conflicted to write a book review. I’m most likely going to get some crap for this but..OH WELL.

First I want to mention I went into this book completely blind. Started reading it and realized OMG this is a prequel to Divine Rivals. Now when I say prequel I mean Wild Reverence literally takes place years before The Divine Rivals duology even begins. As someone who is a huge fan of Divine Rivals I say this with a 100% certainty you should read that duology first before tackling Wild Reverence. Without spoilers just do it, you will thank me later.

Anyway, back to my initial conflict with this review. Wild Reverence was one of my most anticipated reads of 2025. I mean come on have you seen the Fairyloot special edition just stunning. Plus even the first round printed edition is beautiful. So because of this I had huge expectations. After finishing the book I have to say I was expecting so much more. Now I’m not saying I hated it. But it did leave me feeling disappointed. Especially in terms of the romance. Like Rebecca, I love you, you write such beautiful love stories. I mean come on you gave us Iris & Roman. Forever top tiered romance couple of all time. And trust me I was swooning for Matilda and Vincent. But their journey just left me wanting more. And I feel like they never reached the relationship pinnacle I had idealized in my head. Again that’s not to say I didn’t love them, believe me I did. I just wanted more.

My other big problem in this book is the same problem I had with Divine Rivals. The first 40% of Wild Reverence is extremely slow and very HEAVY on the world building. If you’ve followed me for a while I mentioned I DNF’d Divine Rivals 3 times before I finally powered through. That same thing happened for me here, but I knew I just had to push through, trust Rebecca’s process because it will be worth it. And I was correct even though the beginning is extremely overwhelming and at times boring. It was worth it all to see the ending come to fruition.

Speaking of the ending. Those last few chapters made everything worth it. If it hadn’t have been for that I may have shocked everyone by giving this a 2 star rating. But that last 20% brought it home for me. Vincent & Matilda finale gave me so much joy and my face hurt from smiling so much. And then that epilogue?!?!!!!! I was screaming. Seeing the connections come to fruition in the last few chapters made everything worth it. Overall, even though I had my ups and downs with this book. I would still highly recommend it. And I can’t wait to see everyone reading and reacting to this once it releases on September 2! Lastly big thank you to NetGalley, Rebecca Ross, and Saturday books for providing me an arc to read and review.

I was very excited to read this book after absolutely loving Divine Rivals. You don’t have to read that duology to read Wild Reverence, but there are Easter eggs that are more fun if you’ve read it.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book but I did have mixed feelings along the way. This book has a lot of world building that filled up a lot of the story, in my opinion. Yet, I still am left with a lot of questions. I hope there are more books set in this world so I can learn more. Also, this book is definitely a slow burn. On top of there being a lot of world building, there’s a lot of telling stories instead of showing them. This happens because the timeline of this book spans over decades. But I’m someone who enjoys dialogue between characters so this took some getting used to.

The book starts with Matilda, the female main character, being born and you go through her childhood and that’s when you learn a chunk of world building. Very little of the first 20% of the book is dialogue due to this. After she’s an adult and the true plot starts, there is more dialogue and current scenes happening but there are still spans of just telling us what’s been happening over the span of days, weeks, or even years. This being said, this author writes very beautifully and I do truly enjoy her writing.

While I think very few couples can top Iris and Roman in Divine Rivals, I really enjoyed the romance of this book. It had some tropes that I find enjoyable. The tropes aren’t too in your face and fit the plot, so don’t let that deter you. This book was slow burn for most of it but did get a bit suspenseful near the end as in I just didn’t know what would happen next and had to keep flipping pages to find out.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and the epilogue had me gasping. I will continue reading books by this author.

Thaaank you for this being Read Now! One of my most anticipated reads

The vibes were incredible! For all of the books in this world I struggle to clearly visualize the world but for some reason it works anyway. Ross’ writing is so magical, atmospheric and beautiful I was swept away with the story sort of like a dream.

I loved reading about the creation, gods and how they live. This was all so interesting and Bade- how I love him. I got so attached to Vincent, Matilda and really everyone in the world. I loved it.

This book is all about the vibes and dreamy quality. For me, it gives a similar vibe as Laini Taylor’s books.

Thanks to NetGalley and Saturday Books for the ARC

This book CHANGED my life. It’s even better than Divine Rivals?!

Ugh her way with words 🥹

I absolutely adored the Letters of Enchantment series and was so excited to see this was set in the same world but this time focusing more on the gods. The writing was the same beautiful and eloquent writing that Rebecca Ross is known for but for some reason I had a harder time immersing myself into this story. I think the book was too long to read on kindle and I started to get fatigue after a while. The middle of the book did slow down a good bit and made it feel sluggish trying to get through it. I really did enjoy the beginning and ending, it just felt like maybe there was too much happening but also nothing really happening in the middle. The ending and how everything tied up was so delightful though! It was heart breaking at times and lovely at others. I really enjoyed Vincent and Matilda and my heart broke for them and the tragedies that surrounds them. I think if the pacing had been slightly faster and I would have read the physical or had an audio as well, I would have given this all the stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Saturday Books for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I haven't read Divine Rivals, but I figured I would give Wild Reverence a try. I felt it was very slow and you were missing so much going on due to Matilda being all over the place. The book was very long for not a lot of action. The world building was very dense. The chemistry between the main characters was also lacking. Overall, I felt the story line was good, just needed a better execution.

spice: 1/5 (ch 67 84)

➸ 5 stars

“For anyone who has ever had to let go of someone they love”

𓈀 🪻 𓄹𓂃 thank you to netgalley and st. martin’s press for the advanced readers copy!

“And I wondered how it was possible for my heart to miss something that I had never experienced.”

this book. THIS. BOOK. i loved everything about it. rebecca’s writing is so utterly beautiful and magical. i was so immersed in this book and this story. being back in the world of divine rivals felt like coming home but it also made me look at that series with an entirely different perspective! i highly recommend going into this book blind!!

“Love amongst immortals is a weakness.”

we learn more about the entirety of the gods; powers, motivations, lifestyle, etc!! it was so intriguing to me and like nothing i’ve ever read before! we got to see some of the gods that were introduced in divine rivals and knowing more about them in depth added to much that was missing in the duology!

“He held me like a mortal father embraces his daughter, like nothing could tear me from him.”

i will have to say my favorite god is bade, he wasnt the main focus but his story was SO interesting!!! the letter, adria, everything after that!! his relationship to matilda brought tears to my eyes.

“I could have fallen to my knees to know I had been dreaming of her all this time.”

in this story, we have the goddess x mortal trope which was EVERYTHING.

it all starts with a dream. a boy with nightmares and a goddess who answers. a bond that formed to protect from the fears that haunt. their first meeting was EVERYTHING TO ME. it was so pure.

i loved how we got a lot of backstory before getting into the main plot, it added so much depth!!

full, in-depth review is available on my goodreads!

Set centuries before the time of Divine Rivals, Wild Reverence follows Matilda and Vincent as their fates and tragedies intertwine.

As always from Rebecca Ross, this was so beautifully written. I'm obsessed with her brand of lyricism and this didn't disappoint! There's something so poignant about it that brings the world and the feelings of the characters to life, making it so easy to fall into Matilda and Vincent's story and to get attached also to the people they love. I really enjoyed how Matilda and Vincent's relationship was built, and of course there was the yearning that Ross knows how to do so well!

Matilda is a descendant of both Skyward and Underling gods, so it was a treat to explore those aspects that felt like mostly just a backdrop in Iris and Roman's story. Vincent's mortal life was also fleshed out well with nice little name drops to Oath. I felt like there was a good balance of keeping this prequel very much its own story while dropping in Easter egg connections to the world's future!

Thank you NetGalley and Saturday Books for the ARC! Wild Reverence is set in the world of the gods established in Divine Rivals and follows the story of Matilde. Born as a daughter of both the underling and skyward realms, her fate is to be a herald of the gods, but there is more to her destiny that has not been revealed. As Matilde comes of age, she is drawn to the dreams of a mortal boy, Vincent from the house of Wyndrift. Betrayals and the thirst for power rule among the gods, but Matilde must do her best to navigate her treacherous surroundings and fight for the man she's been inexplicatbly drawn to. With expertly crafted world-building, heart-wrenching emotions, and love permeating every page, Wild Reverence is sure to please fans of Rebecca Ross.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a copy of this to review.

I wasn't sure if Rebecca Ross could hit it out of the park again after Divine Rivals and Ruthless Vows, but she totally did. I couldn't put this one down!

The fact that Ross created her own mythological system for her books is breathtaking. In the Divine Rivals series, we saw some of Dacre and Enva and their worlds. But Wild Reverence dives deep into the world of her gods through our main character, Matilda.

Matilda is the child of one Skyward and one Underling. She lives with her mother in the Underling realm as a child, where she reads human dreams for fun and finds that she's appeared in the dreams of a human child named VIncent.

I fully believe you should experience this book (as in most cases) without knowing much. But through this story, you get to know Matilda and her struggles of being torn between the worlds of her parents as well as wanting to be part of the mortal realm.

It's a gorgeous love story and labeled as "adult." There are two scenes of intimacy but know that although they might qualify as open-door they are written in very vague terms and I would have no problem handing this to my 16- or 14-year-olds.

Ross's world of the divine is so vivid, so interesting, and obviously so well thought-out. I just loved this one and I can't wait for everyone else to love it in September!

Unfortunately I DNF'd the book at 50% through after reading it for almost a month and even read it on a long train ride. Usually a book this size would take me around 1-2 weeks. The main reason why I struggled so much with this book is because of the pacing and the world building at the very beginning of the book. I LOVED Divine Rivals and Ruthless vows so I went into the book with high hopes and a general knowledge of the gods.

I found the book's pacing was inconsistent where there was a large portion of the book where I feel like nothing happened, and then all of a sudden the book picks up and I'm super interested in it, but then the books pace halts and we're back to doing basically nothing.

The parts I did enjoy was Vincent's and Matilda's relationships but in the end the plot didn't keep me engaged. I've been seeing very positive reviews about the book though so I may revisit it in audiobook format when it's published.

Thanks to Netgally and Saturday Press for the review copy.

Didn't love it, but didn't hate it. This book was one those right book, but wrong reader situations.
I am grateful for the chance to have read it.

How I savored this lyrical, lush tale of gods and constellations, of golden ichor and golden threads of fate, of yearning and the taste of bitter prayers, of romance, death, and second chances. The story is extremely slow moving, somehow both melancholic and luminous, and as a reader, I recommend just sinking into the mood.

It is set in the same world as Divine Rivals in the same way that King Arthur is set in the same world as Anne of Green Gables. But Rebecca plays with themes of destined souls, sacrifices, and sending letters in both. If you liked one you will like the other, and if you didn’t that’s fine, more for me.

🌿✨ Wild Reverence is a breathtaking journey through a mythic world, laced with longing, love, and the ache of impossible choices. Rebecca Ross builds a divine mythology from the ground up, centered around Matilda, a young goddess born of two opposing celestial realms. With the unique power to walk between the realms of the gods, Matilda becomes a bridge in more ways than one — not just between powers, but between love and duty, past and future. 💫

From the first page, Ross’s prose pulls you into a world that feels both ancient and intimate. Her writing is lush and lyrical without ever being overdone — it reads like a dream you don’t want to wake from. 🌙 The world-building is stunning: gods and mortals, Underlings and Skywards, ancient ruins and long-forgotten wars — it’s rich, but never overwhelming. The mythology she crafts is wholly original, and feels like it’s been around for centuries. ✨📜

But what truly sets this book apart is the romance. 💕 Matilda and Vincent’s relationship begins in dreams — literally — and the connection they form across worlds is beautifully slow-burn and emotionally devastating. It’s the kind of love story that builds from a flicker into a flame you can feel. Their bond is quiet, thoughtful, and charged with tension, and Ross treats it with care and depth, never rushing the emotional payoff. 🫶🔥

If there’s one small critique, it’s that the pacing can slow in the middle — mostly due to introspection and the complexity of the world. 🐢 But honestly? It didn’t take away from the experience. That breathing room gives the story emotional weight and lets you feel the stakes. By the final act, every thread ties together in a way that’s heartbreakingly satisfying. 😭🌌

💭 Overall, Wild Reverence is a story about love — not just romantic love, but the love that pushes us to question who we are and what we’re willing to sacrifice. It’s dreamy, dramatic, and drenched in emotion. If you loved Divine Rivals, or just want a romantasy that feels like poetry come to life, this one’s for you. 📖💖