Rebecca Ross

Rebecca Ross grew up in Atlanta and studied English at the University of Georgia after starting out in a nutrition and dietetics program, later working at a Colorado dude ranch and as a librarian before her fantasy-romance career took off. Divine Rivals, published in 2023, became one of the books credited with helping kick off BookTok's romantasy wave: rival newspaper columnists Iris Winnow and Roman Kitt can't stand each other at work, unaware that they've been secretly corresponding through enchanted letters, even as a war between two rival gods drags their city toward collapse and eventually sends them both to report from the front lines. Ross writes the duology — Divine Rivals and its direct continuation, Ruthless Vows — as one long, wistful, WWI-inflected love story told largely through longing letters, with a melancholy, painterly style and a comparatively low heat level that set it apart from much of the romantasy boom it helped launch. The two books should be read back to back, since the first ends on a cliffhanger the second resolves immediately. New readers should start with Divine Rivals itself; those who finish the duology and want more of the same world of warring gods, but not a continuation of Iris and Roman's story, can look for Wild Reverence, a same-universe standalone. Ross has also written the Elements of Cadence and Queen's Rising duologies elsewhere in her catalog.