From the publisher: Aurelie Chantelune was born to serve. Raised as a knight in a kingdom ravaged by demons, she’s spent her life honing her blade, driven by the memory of the monsters who tore her family apart and by the knowledge that she’s one of the few who can stop them.
If Aurelie can claim her first kill, she’ll inherit a legacy passed down through the Chantelune bloodline: a soulbond with Yuriel, an angel whose power is vital to her kingdom’s survival. But when those she loves begin turning into the very monsters she’s sworn to destroy, Aurelie is forced to seek help from the last place she ever imagined. Desperate, she forges a second and far more dangerous bond with Severin, a demon she can hardly trust, but who claims to know how to end the war for good.
With their lives and fates entwined, Aurelie, Yuriel, and Severin must team up to hunt down a cure capable of turning demons back into humans. But the more they learn about one another and the deeper their relationships grow, the more Aurelie begins to question the war and her place in it. With both of her bonded on opposing sides, she’ll have to make a choice: continue to stand with the angels, or risk everything by trusting a demon.
Whilst Adalyn Grace is an established bestselling author, with series such as Belladonna and All the Stars and Teeth under her belt, The Wretched Divine is the first book by Grace that I have ventured into, and I was certainly not disappointed. I was so pleased and excited to be offered the chance to dive into a new take on a favourite fantasy trope, that of ‘angels vs demons’. With fond memories of 2010’s reading such as The Fallen series by Lauren Kate and Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, the opportunity to read more about one of my favourite fantasy themes, with the added bonus of being in the adult genre was exciting.
I am admittedly a relatively speedy reader, but once I had time to do so, I effortlessly sped through this book with the gusto of a caffeine-fuelled gremlin! I was hooked from the first few chapters, and the pace of the book kept me wanting to just jump back in to see the next characters point of view and what the new angle would reveal. I was most irritated at times, to find that I had to put down my book and do my real-life job!
The story started off fast and hard-hitting, following a jaunt into the past, with young Aurelie going through a life-changing event and personal loss, culminating in a huge change in the direction of her life, which sets up the novel for the action to come.
Within the first few pages we are launched into the human world and a fight between humans, their angel counterparts and the demon horde. Aurelie soon finds herself in a desperate situation as those she loves start to turn into the very things her people have trained to vanquish. She finds herself becoming part of an unlikely trio with herself, her destined angel Yuri, and a sassy demon named Severin.
I really enjoyed the multi-person narrative, as I adore novels that show the reader different perspectives and move the story forwards this way, but I did think that as this was potentially the first in the series I was sometimes left grasping for a little more character detail and their motivations and experiences. Some of the supporting characters, such as the Princess Ilaria, who had such an engaging undercurrent were perhaps not given the full time to answer all the questions brought to the fore, and I am really interested to catch up with that hopefully in the next instalment.
The addition of flashback scenes, both rare and revealing, and interspaced between the overarching story and following the divine host, really solidified the ‘past versus present’ undercurrent of the narrative without feeling choppy. This really made the ending so much more gloriously brutal.
The injection of humour throughout the novel, by Grace’s own witty repartee and the way that the characters bounced off each other, was both captivating and genuinely funny. Severin, the saucy demon Main Male Character, was a constant source of wit and banter especially, creating delicious friction within the main trio.
It can be argued that in many similar Fantasy books at the moment there is a propensity to try to rush the character development and interaction into intimacy. I personally think the pacing of the relationships and developments in this novel – the facing of shared danger, betrayal, revelations, trials and tribulations – is about right. It really makes the reader invest in the characters and their constantly shifting dynamics without hurrying them into an expected love story.
The emotional aspect of the character relationships is certainly key to the plot, and there is a level of spice towards the end of the story, but it is important to denote that there is so much more than the romance to this book.
I liked the fact that although the story moves by mostly following the main characters, the supporting characters were given their own journeys and really helped to round out the intricate view of the world happening outside of Aurelie, Severin and Yuri.
As is perhaps befitting the first book in what will potentially be a multi-book series, there was a lot of lore to digest but the care that Grace took to ensure that the reader enjoyed and easily followed the unique worldbuilding and the rich and varied settings was evident.
In particular, I loved how the narrative detailed the deceptive nature of ‘good versus evil’ and the complexity of the politics surrounding this. It was not only the demon characters that demonstrated morally grey areas, but a real-world reflection cast, where the characters did not always perform as expected and the divine and demon were not wholly black and white.
In summary, I dashed through The Wretched Divine. I was captured by the constant momentum of the story; I loved the twists and turns, the brutal action, the captivating relationships and the jaw-dropping ending that left me both genuinely shocked and yet ravenous for more. I would recommend this for anyone looking for a novel with constant action, dark deception, sizzling relationships and a tantalising cliffhanger ending. A stunning read and I will be waiting on tenterhooks for the sequel.
© 2026 Charlie Weir
Hardback | Gollancz/Orion
THE WRETCHED DIVINE by Adelyn Grace
September 2026 | 512 pages
ISBN 978-1399630023
