REVIEW The Fake Divination Offsense (Magic and Romance #2) by Sara Raasch

The Fake Divination Offense (Magic and Romance #2) by Sara Raasch

All of Sara Raasch’s newest books have been major hits with me, so it was no surprise that I absolutely fell in love with the second book in the Magic and Romance series. Orok’s character was awesome and a major part of Sebastian and Thio’s story in The Entanglement of Rival Wizards, so it was nice to see him get his own book in The Fake Divination Offense.

Orok, while being a half giant defensive tank, is a big softy and Alexo triggered all of his protective insticts. This picks up fairly quickly after the events of the first book. Being trauma bonded with Sebastian, it was a lot to see how they were dealing with the aftermath of the Camp Merethyl lawsuit. It was also quite a journey to have Orok re-evaluate what he saw as strength, after being told what it was supposed to mean to him for so many years (by the camp, by his old team, by his family and his religion). While Alexo is not someone who would be the poster card for physical strength, he’s demonstrated a lot of emotional strength for dealing with all of the turmoil in his life and I think that he and Orok fit very well together.

While this book has fantasy elements, its set in a modern world so its not super heavy on worldbuilding. I would primarily categorize it as a sports romance with fantasy elements. As someone who doesn’t pay attention to that many sports in general, I really appreciate how accessible and easy to understand the author made the sport of rawball (which is very dungeons and dragons meets rugby). I would totally read a short story detailing a full professional game, instead of just the snippets we got in the book.

Overall, this was an amazing book and I finished it within about a day of the release. I highly recomend it to romance readers who enjoy fantasy elements or sports romance type books. It is an adult series, with the violence, and some of the more explicit intimate scenes. While the series seems to be structured as a duology as far as I can tell, I hope there is more in the series to come (especially with the line towards the end of the book about the status of two of Orok’s teammates).

Content Warnings: Psychological and Emotional Trauma, Cult Themes and Kidnapping, Religious Elements, Explicit Intimate Scenes