New York Times bestselling author, Rebecca Ross, released “Wild Reverence,” her third adult novel on Sept 2. Set as a prequel for the Letters of Enchantment duology, “Wild Reverence” tells the story of the Skyward and Underling gods, their tensions and how one god broke away from the traditional thinking of the gods, breaking barriers to follow her heart.
Born from both Skyward and Underling descent, Matilda, the herald of the gods, is born with a power she doesn’t understand and must keep secret. Her life is threatened by gods who would go to extreme lengths to kill her for her powers. As such, Matilda grew up learning to be conscious of those around her and not concern herself with the mortals. But when finding an old prayer from a mortal boy named Vincent, who used to dream of her, Matilda finds herself drawn to the mortal realm and Vincent. After writing a prayer that was never answered in his early years, Vincent became a hardened, colder version of himself that never gave the gods or their prayers a second thought, until Matilda came stumbling back into his life.
The two, fated to meet first in dreams as children and then reunited once more as adults, Matilda and Vincent must navigate the growing mortal conflict, the twisted ways of the gods, and their growing feelings for each other to survive.
As the prequel for the very successful “Divine Rivals” and its sequel “Ruthless Vows,” there were high expectations for “Wild Reverence,” and how it would further add to this magical world. It is safe to say that the book soared beyond those expectations, with its intriguing characters and a very interesting magic system.
The storywriting was the best part of this book. Like “Divine Rivals,” it is a unique plot that isn’t seen in other stories within the fantasy genre. For many fantasy novels, stories are centered around a magical world with fairies, fae, or dragons, along with a strong female lead who has morally grey male love interests, fated mate situations or a love triangle. This is in no way a bad thing, but after a while, those story elements with repeated tropes and character archetypes begin to become old and repetitive.
“Wild Reverence” was a nice breakaway from those standard fantasy tropes. It wasn’t an enemies-to-lovers like many other popular fantasy novels today, but rather focused on childhood crushes to star-crossed lovers. And instead of the main character’s story being told in flashbacks or in passing, the first part of the book — about 124 pages — was about Matilda’s childhood and how she grew up. In a way, the readers grew up with her, providing a cute introduction and establishing the relationship between young Matilda and Vincent and other story details from the start.
Another intriguing aspect of this book was the relationship between all of the gods and how their worlds worked. There are many gods, separated by class depending on how many stars were in their constellation, which then correlated with how much power they had. This led to gods killing each other and taking the fallen god’s power as their own. Thus the challenging hierarchy of power creates constant tension between all of the gods; while they may have alliances with each other, the gods never know who to trust, and it creates many interesting betrayals that readers didn’t see coming. While it was pretty obvious when one of the characters was the kind of god to be ruthless and kill for more power, the readers never knew who would be killed or when it would happen.
Aside from the story, what “Wild Reverence” did quite well was introduce concepts for relationships very early on and brought them back later. The best relationship in the novel was between Matilda and Bade, the god of war. Bade trained Matilda to defend herself, was her ally early on in the novel, and was a consistent father figure when she didn’t know her father, even when she eventually did later on in the novel. She grew up with him, and by the end of the book, it was clear that he cared for her deeply as a father would a daughter. It was a lovely relationship, especially as the chosen family trope is a favorite among readers.
“Wild Reverence” is a magical, whirlwind of a book with a well-written plot that didn’t follow typical fantasy plot lines and tropes. It sets itself apart from many of the other novels in its genre, and while still featuring magic in a fantasy world, it doesn’t feel as if it’s something that’s being repeated. “Wild Reverence” feels original and real, and draws readers in almost instantly, as it tells the story of a young girl destined to be more than what her constellation first shows.
Jocelyn Cosgrove is an Arts & Entertainment Writer for the summer 2025 quarter. She can be reached at jmcosgro@uci.edu.
Edited by Corinna Chin and Joshua Gonzales