Rebecca Ross completely rewrote ‘Wild Reverence,’ the ‘Divine Rivals’ prequel, after she turned in her first draft

“Once, long ago, I believed the god of war was my father, but only because he was the first to hold me in his arms after I was born,” reads the first line of Rebecca Ross‘ new novel, “Wild Reverence.”

The book, which was published on Tuesday, is a stand-alone romantasy novel set in the same world as Ross’ beloved “Divine Rivals.”

That first sentence sets the tone for the magical and engrossing plot of “Wild Reverence,” but Ross told Business Insider it didn’t even exist in the first version of her manuscript.

Creating ‘Wild Reverence’

When Ross released “Divine Rivals” and “Ruthless Vows” in 2023, both became New York Times bestsellers, a milestone for Ross after nearly a decade of writing books.

“When I wrote ‘Divine Rivals,’ it was just a magical experience,” Ross said about the novel she wrote in 2020. “I hadn’t written anything in almost a year. That story literally just poured out of me.”

“Divine Rivals” follows Iris Winnow and Roman Kitt, two journalists working at a newspaper amid a war between two gods recently woken from a centuries-long slumber. A magical typewriter ends up changing Iris and Roman’s lives, as well as the fate of the war.

Ross deftly builds out her fantasy world as the books progress, weaving magic and romance together. As she told Business Insider, she left herself opportunities to continue exploring the world she created at the end of “Ruthless Vows.”

“I knew even when I wrapped the duology up with ‘Ruthless Vows,’ I had left a few doors and windows cracked in the world building,” Ross said. Inspiration around the world struck Ross again, but it wasn’t in a continuation of Iris and Roman’s story.

Instead, her story centers on Matilda, a goddess who served as the gods’ herald when they were still awake.

“‘Wild Reverence’ takes place 600 years before ‘Divine Rivals’ because I wanted to give readers the opportunity to see what it was like when all the gods are still alive,” Ross said.

“I got so many questions from readers wanting to know where the magic of the typewriters came from,” she added. “So I was like, ‘All right, I’m going to answer that question for you, but I’m also going to just let you experience what it was like when the gods still reigned.'”

Rewriting a draft

“Wild Reverence” is written in the first person, switching between the perspectives of Matilda and Vincent, a lord she first crossed paths with when they were both children.

However, Ross told Business Insider she wrote the first draft of the novel in third person, which had an entirely different feel from the book she published in September.

“It was so similar in tone to what ‘Divine Rivals’ is like,” Ross said of the first draft. “I had arranged the story where it was a Matilda chapter and then a Vincent chapter, and then a Matilda chapter and then a Vincent chapter. I was trying to keep a certain pattern.”

“I wrote the entire book, the whole first draft, that way, and I just felt like something was missing,” Ross said of “Wild Reverence.”

After she had already submitted the first draft, she got an idea. Ross asked her editor if she could rewrite the book from the first-person perspective, as she wanted to illustrate the differences between Matilda and Vincent as a goddess and a human.

“What does time feel like to her, versus Vincent?” Ross said about the types of differences she wanted to explore.

She said the book’s first line immediately came to her as she rewrote it. The god of war mentioned in the opening sentence didn’t even exist in the novel before the change, but the first-person storytelling unlocked “Wild Reverence” for Ross.

“When I shifted the book and rewrote the whole thing, I even changed where it was,” she said. “I wasn’t necessarily following the same structure. A very different type of story emerged. Even though the bones from the original were still there, it just felt very different.”

Meet Matilda

“Wild Reverence” has five acts, which span decades and feature scenes in the worlds of the gods and humans.

For the duration of Act One, Matilda and Vincent are children, which wasn’t the case in Ross’ first draft, she told Business Insider.

“I feel like it’s so important because we see how she and Vincent are both developing,” Ross said of why she wanted to write about Matilda and Vincent as children. “The things that impact them, who they become when they reunite many years later, we see who they are.”

“Wild Reverence” develops differently from “Divine Rivals,” so readers shouldn’t expect a continuation of the “Letters of Enchantment” series. It’s also an adult novel instead of a young-adult book, so the tone is distinct.

Still, it has the emotional depth and intimacy that fans of “Divine Rivals” and “Ruthless Vows” loved, as well as fun and often bittersweet nods to the duology.

“‘Wild Reverence’ is a stand-alone because I wanted people who have never picked up ‘Divine Rivals’ to still be able to read this book and enjoy it,” Ross said. “But then people who have read the original duology can still pick up on these little hints and things I’ve layered in there. You’re going to get that emotional feeling cause you’re going to recognize things.”

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