Verdict: A witchy sapphic finale with genuinely good grief writing and the series’ most explicit F/F content, undercut by a reconciliation that resolves before it earns anything.
Best for: Readers who have finished the first four Thistle Grove books and want ensemble payoff, atmosphere and a heroine written honestly through depression — and who accept that the demon plot drives the page count.
Heat level: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — explicit open door)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.5/5 — a 3.72 Goodreads average across 4,411 ratings, marked down because seven independent reviewers name the same unearned reconciliation)
Tropes: Second-chance romance, exes forced to work together, small-town witch families, hurt/comfort, found family, tortured heroine, necromancy and demons, grief and recovery, ensemble series finale.
Rise and Divine is Lana Harper’s fifth and final Witches of Thistle Grove novel, published by Berkley on 20 August 2024 at 336 pages, and it puts devil eater Dasha Avramov and her ex-girlfriend Ivy Thorn in charge of the same month-long festival while a dark entity works its way into the town they are meant to be celebrating.
The numbers are steadier than the reputation suggests: 3.72 on Goodreads across 4,411 ratings, 60% of them four or five stars, and 3.74 on StoryGraph from 1,893 reviews. The industry fact worth knowing is what did not happen — Publishers Weekly reviewed the first three books in this series, and its page for this one states that it has not yet reviewed the book. The reviews split harder than a 3.72 implies, and not over quality, but over which half of the book you came for.
What Is Rise and Divine About?
This is paranormal romance filed as small-town contemporary fantasy, and the small-town part carries weight. Thistle Grove runs on four founding witch families with different inherited specialities, so the setting arrives pre-loaded with politics, obligation and the history that makes a private grievance everybody’s business. StoryGraph readers tag it adventurous, emotional and mysterious, and 66% call it medium-paced. The romance operates inside a civic emergency rather than beside one.
Dasha is introduced through what she cannot stop wanting: the far side of the veil, a place that feels euphoric and that she visits for reasons unrelated to the job. She reads Ivy as someone she has already forfeited. Ivy reads Dasha as someone who will always choose the exit. The single point of view buys deep access to the depression and costs any independent sense of what Ivy wants — 71% of StoryGraph readers call the book a mix of plot- and character-driven, and that balance is where the arguments start.
What Makes This Sapphic Witch Romance Work
- The grief writing: Dasha’s pull toward the other side is written as suicidal ideation and addiction at once, and reviewers call it the most careful thing here. Kirkus credits its thoughtfully developed depictions of grief.
- The prose and the atmosphere: Harper’s descriptive writing is the one element trade and reader reviews agree on. Kirkus calls it exquisite; five of the thirty most-read Goodreads reviews praise the lore or the town.
- Dasha herself: 83% of StoryGraph readers report strong character development and 82% call the characters loveable, and the four- and five-star reviews credit her interiority, not the couple.
- The heat, finally: romance.io places it in its 4/5 band, “Explicit open door.” One long-term reader notes Harper finally gave a sapphic pairing more than one sex scene.
- The ensemble: 88% of StoryGraph readers call the cast diverse, and the returning families give the finale a scale the earlier entries never had.
Book Synopsis
Thistle Grove is preparing for the Cavalcade, the month-long festival the four founding witch families stage once every twenty years. Dasha Avramov is an event planner by trade and a devil eater by blood, an outlier even among necromancers. She carries lineage from two founding houses and a talent nobody else shares: she can cross into the land of death beyond the veil, and come back. What she has never explained to anyone, including herself, is how much she likes being there.
The festival planning puts her opposite Ivy Thorn — a nature witch, a former friend, and the woman whose heart Dasha broke rather than let her watch what grief was doing to her. Neither has a way out. They are the two people the Cavalcade cannot run without, and the town has other things to worry about.
Because something is moving through the celebration that should not be there. A dark entity attaches itself to the Cavalcade, and learning what it is means sending Dasha back across the veil, repeatedly, to a place that has already nearly kept her. Her parents are dead, the euphoria on the other side is the only relief she has found, and the town needs her to keep walking toward the thing she is least equipped to survive. The question is not whether she and Ivy still want each other. It is whether Dasha wants the living world enough to come back to it.
My Review
The grief is the best thing here and it is not close. Harper writes Dasha’s relationship with the other side as two things at once — an addiction with a physical pull, and a quiet, patient argument against being alive — and never flattens it into metaphor or resolves it with a kiss. Kirkus agreed, and so did roughly a third of the most-read Goodreads reviews, which spend more words on Dasha’s depression than on the couple.
The second strength is the town. Five books in, Thistle Grove has enough machinery — family specialities, inherited obligations, a festival with rules — that the setting does work the plot would otherwise have to. The Cavalcade supplies a clock and a public stage, so the two are forced together by civic necessity rather than coincidence.
The romance is where this falls down, and it is the dominant complaint rather than my private objection. Seven independent reviewers — across Goodreads, Joyfully Jay, The Nerd Daily, ruse reviews and The Lily Cafe — describe the reconciliation identically. The Nerd Daily calls it “too quick and convenient.” The Lily Cafe says it flipped a switch a little too easily. Four add that the romance gets less page time than the demon plot, which matters in a book shelved as genre romance, and four say the antagonist arrives with enormous menace and is dispatched too fast. Two argue Dasha’s charge with that male demon reads stronger than anything she has with Ivy. Kirkus, the only trade review this book received, mentions none of it; it flags the book a bit slow to start and stops.
There is an expectation to reset. Berkley sells this as a magical romantic comedy sparkling with spells and witchcraft. StoryGraph readers tag it emotional at 63% and dark at 42% against funny at 26%, and the community warnings list grief, parental death and addiction as graphic. This is a book about a woman being slowly talked into dying, in a bright pink cover. If cosy witchy rom-com drew you, calibrate hard. If the darkness worried you, relax — 30% still marked it hopeful.
My honest note: A four-star grief novel with a three-star romance bolted to the front of it, in a series that was always better at towns than at couples. If you are here to finish Thistle Grove it delivers; if you want a second-chance romance where the reunion costs something, it does not.
| Element | In Rise and Divine |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Dasha Avramov & Ivy Thorn — devil eater and nature witch, exes forced to co-run the town festival |
| Core tropes | Second-chance romance, forced proximity, hurt/comfort, found family, tortured heroine, small-town magic |
| Setting | Thistle Grove, Illinois — a small town run by four founding witch families, during the once-in-twenty-years Cavalcade |
| Heat level | 4/5 — explicit open door |
| Series | The Witches of Thistle Grove book 5 and the finale — new couple, HEA, heavily reliant on the earlier books |
| Content notes | Grief, parental death and addiction (graphic); explicit sexual content, suicidal thoughts and alcohol (moderate); toxic relationship, car accident and drug abuse (minor) |
How Spicy Is Rise and Divine?
A 4/5. romance.io places Rise and Divine in its second-highest band and labels it “Explicit open door,” meaning the sex is on the page and not faded out. Readers corroborate it as a step up rather than a constant: several note it is spicier than the two entries before it, and one series reader points out this is the first Thistle Grove sapphic pairing given more than a single scene.
What is worth flagging is not a kink or a consent question — no reviewer raises either. It is the emotional weather. These scenes sit inside a story about suicidal ideation and active grief, and StoryGraph marks sexual content moderate while marking grief, parental death and addiction graphic. If you want explicit sapphic content in a book that stays light, this is the wrong shelf; if you want it in one that takes its heroine seriously, it is closer than most.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you have read the first four Thistle Grove books and want the families together one last time, you read paranormal romance for the world rather than the couple, you value a heroine written honestly through depression, and you like a small town with real machinery.
You may want to skip it if: you have not read the earlier books, because the cast assumes you know it; you need a second-chance reconciliation to be fought for, because this one resolves early; you want the couple to hold most of the page count, because the demon plot takes it; or grief, parental death and suicidal ideation are not what you want from a witchy romance.
In short: an excellent series farewell and a mediocre second-chance romance, sold as the second thing.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (August 2026)
Two years on, the discourse is quiet in a revealing way. There is no viral moment and no argument. More striking is the absent sapphic-community coverage: the Lesbrary, LezReviewBooks, Jude in the Stars and I Heart SapphFic all covered Payback’s a Witch, and I found no review of Rise and Divine on any of them. The trade picture matches — Publishers Weekly reviewed books one to three and not this one, nothing at Library Journal or Booklist, Kirkus the sole trade review and unstarred. Discovery is running on Berkley’s distribution and series inertia, not the sapphic review ecosystem, and the volume shows it: 47,086 Goodreads ratings for book one against 4,411 for book five, down roughly 91%.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): Dasha, first and by a distance. The recurring word is “damaged,” used admiringly, and StoryGraph’s 83% strong-character-development split backs it up. Second, the finale function: nine of the thirty most-read Goodreads reviews are explicitly saying goodbye, several calling the climax stronger than any previous book’s. Third, atmosphere and lore, the one thing Kirkus and readers agree on. The notable minority view runs against the majority complaint — several readers report the book stands alone fine, contradicting those who describe wading through series backstory.
What readers argue about and complain about: The reconciliation, above everything. The mechanism is that Dasha and Ivy already have a history, so the book treats their reunion as largely done — brief resistance, one event, then they are together, which removes the arc a second-chance romance exists to deliver. Second, page-time: four reviewers say the investigation crowds out the couple, and because Dasha’s goal shifts once she has Ivy back, the romance stops generating tension halfway. Third, the antagonist, described by four reviewers as arriving with real menace then resolved in a rush, its answer guessable early. Fourth and quieter, two wanted a Thorn family point of view, the other three families having had books. The split is accessibility, tracking with whether the reader finished book four. On audio, Bailey Carr narrates, unabridged, 9 hours 37 minutes for Penguin Random House Audio, released on publication day, and listeners are positive.
Prefer audio? Listen to Rise and Divine on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.
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The series question everyone should ask first: This is the last book, and Berkley did not say so on the cover. Multiple readers report learning it was the finale only from the acknowledgements, and one felt it did not really feel like an ending. It delivers a complete HEA with no cliffhanger, so reading order matters more than resolution. The ratings do not decline — 3.57, 3.73, 3.71, 3.54, then 3.72, the second-highest in the series — but the cast compounds. Three of the five books are sapphic: one, four and this one. For Harper’s F/F work alone, read Payback’s a Witch, then In Charm’s Way, then this.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Rise and Divine a standalone?
Technically yes, practically no. Each book centres a new couple and this one resolves completely, but Dasha and Ivy appear earlier and the finale leans on four books of cast. Readers who managed it cold were the minority.
Does Rise and Divine have a happy ending?
Yes. It closes on a full HEA with no cliffhanger, and as the last book nothing is held back. Some readers felt the resolution arrived too quickly for a send-off.
How explicit is the sex in Rise and Divine?
Explicit and on the page. romance.io rates it 4/5 in its “Explicit open door” band, and series readers consider it a step up from the previous two entries. The heat arrives late.
Is Rise and Divine on Kindle Unlimited?
No. It is a Berkley trade paperback published 20 August 2024, so it is a purchase rather than a borrow. The audiobook is on Libro.fm, narrated by Bailey Carr at 9 hours 37 minutes.
Is this the only sapphic book in the Thistle Grove series?
No — three of the five are sapphic. Payback’s a Witch and In Charm’s Way both centre F/F couples; books two and three are M/F. Book one remains the most-read, at over 47,000 ratings.
If You Loved Rise and Divine, Read These Next
Three land closest, each on a different axis. The Honey Witch by Sydney J. Shields is the nearest sapphic witch romance built on grief and inheritance, slower and less explicit. Make the Season Bright by Ashley Herring Blake is the corrective if the reconciliation here frustrated you — same second-chance engine, but the repair gets the page time it needs. And if the cosy ensemble was the draw, our spicy sapphic romantasy guide ranks twenty-five books with heat and darkness rated separately. See also the full run of book reviews.
The Bottom Line
Rise and Divine sets out to close a five-book series and give its most damaged heroine a way back to the living world. It succeeds at the grief, the atmosphere and the ensemble farewell. It fails at the reconciliation, the balance between couple and plot, and the antagonist, more frightening on arrival than exit. That is a good book and a weak romance, which is awkward to sell as a romance. If you have read the other four it is worth your time; if you want a second-chance story with a hard-won reunion, start elsewhere. Check Rise and Divine on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Rise and Divine ranks as a strong series finale carrying a thin romance — emotionally serious and beautifully set, constrained by a reconciliation that costs its leads nothing, and best approached for the farewell and the grief writing rather than for the second-chance arc.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 3.5/5
- ✓ 3.72 average across 4,411 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ StoryGraph agrees at 3.74 from 1,893 reviews
- ✓ Kirkus reviewed it; no PW, LJ or Booklist
- ✓ Seven reviewers name the same unearned reconciliation
Romance ★★★☆☆ 3.2/5
- ✓ Real history and warmth between Dasha and Ivy
- ✓ Forced proximity engineered by the festival, not coincidence
- ✓ Heat delivers once it finally arrives
- ✓ Four reviewers say the demon plot crowds it out
Characters ★★★★☆ 4.2/5
- ✓ 83% of StoryGraph readers cite strong development
- ✓ 82% call the characters loveable
- ✓ 88% call the cast diverse
- ✓ Single POV leaves Ivy comparatively unexamined
Writing ★★★★☆ 4.1/5
- ✓ Kirkus praises exquisite, immersive descriptive prose
- ✓ Lore and town named by five top reviewers
- ✓ Series machinery deployed without heavy exposition dumps
- ✓ One two-star reviewer calls it a slog
Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ 63% of StoryGraph readers tag it emotional
- ✓ Grief and addiction handled as one intertwined problem
- ✓ Graphic content warnings for grief and parental death
- ✓ Stakes deflate once the antagonist resolves early
Heat Level ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ romance.io band four of five, explicit open door
- ✓ First Thistle Grove sapphic pairing with multiple scenes
- ✓ Readers call it spicier than books three and four
- ✓ Sexual content only moderate against graphic grief warnings
Ending ★★★☆☆ 3.3/5
- ✓ Complete HEA, no cliffhanger, series closed
- ✓ Climax praised as the strongest in the series
- ✓ Antagonist dispatched too quickly, say four reviewers
- ✓ Finale status unannounced; readers found it in acknowledgements
Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 3.6/5
- ✓ 9 hours 37 minutes on audio, Bailey Carr narrating
- ✓ Ensemble farewell rewards readers of all five
- ✓ 66% call it medium-paced, easy to revisit
- ✓ Thin romance arc gives less to return to
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