a grand necromancer called margarita
Rise and Divine by Lana Harper (The Witches of Thistle Grove, Number 5)
2/5
I read the first of this series in October of 2023. Payback’s a Witch was a fun, witchy read about two girls done wrong by the same boy. In their plot for revenge, they fell in love. And you know, the rest is history. I adored the first in The Witches of Thistle Grove series, but I fell away from them for a time. I’ll be honest, the appeal of the first book for me was that it was exactly the kind of sapphic I was looking for.
The next couple of books in the series may have been close to it, but the blurbs didn’t catch me just right. I am a mood reader after all. A book has to catch me at the exact right moment. Rise and Divine happened to do that. Almost a year later, and Lana Harper got me again!
This book is a second chance sapphic romance that takes place in the cozy little magical town of Thistle Grove. Dasha Avramov is her family’s only devil-eater, and she’s broken the heart of Ivy Thorn two-too-many times. Rise and Divine follows them on the mend. Dasha is determined to win her true love back. (I’m so painfully aware of how corny and cringe-worthy that sounds. I have to report, though, it read that way too.)
I fully expected to be swept back into Thistle Grove with this sweet little second-chance romance. And it was sweet, it was cute, it was all the things a romance should be. It just did not land the way I wanted it to. Usually, I love a second-chance romance—they go hand-in-hand with my most tender fantasies. This one, though, fell short.
That doesn’t mean if you love sapphic, witchy romances that you shouldn’t give Rise and Divine a shot! If you’re craving spooky, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble embracing Thistle Grove’s founding families.
Even though it wasn’t a story that I swooned over, it was enjoyable. It felt difficult to believe, but not because of the magic. It was the love that felt unbelievable. That probably says more about my relationship to second-chance romance than it does Rise and Divine. This book gets an extra point because it taught me something about myself.
The rekindling of Dasha and Ivy’s romance was unsatisfying for me, but that’s not a feeling I resent. Sometimes, all that’s needed is forgiveness without anything else after that. Of course, that could mean two jilted lovers get back together. But it doesn’t always have to! For this story, I would have been okay is Dasha and Ivy went their separate ways. I maybe even would have preferred it.
PS. Margarita being the name of the Avramov family’s first ever matriarch makes me giggle.
PPS. I still love Talia Avramov.
