Between Wrath and Mercy

The Divine Between, Book 1

By: Jess Wisecup

Narrated by: Kelsey Navarro, Sean Crisden

Length: 27 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

A mother will do anything to save her child, no matter the cost.

After her daughter is kidnapped, Emmeline Highclere—a thirty-four-year-old mother living in isolation with memories and grief her only companion—must do everything in her limited power and divine abilities to get the girl back.

Emmeline believes her daughter, Elora, is the Beloved—the conduit with goddess-granted divine abilities prophesied to bring peace to the Three Kingdoms. Because the last person thought to be the Beloved was brutally murdered by the enemy kingdom of Folterra, Emmeline has dedicated the last sixteen years to hiding her daughter and keeping her safe. When Elora is kidnapped by a Folterran prince, Emmeline must leave her place of hiding, resolving to do anything to rescue her daughter. But to have any chance against those who took the girl, Emmeline must call upon one of the most powerful conduits in the Three Kingdoms, the Crown Prince of Vesta—the man who broke her heart—and hope he helps her despite their estrangement.

With the weight of his father’s impending death hanging over his head, Crown Prince Rainier has begun to make moves to prove his dedication to assume the role of king. When he is visiting the estate that was once a second home to him, the woman who has long haunted his dreams and consumed his thoughts appears before him, asking for his help to find the child she had with another man. Now, he must decide: does he drop what he is doing to help Emmeline, or does he maintain his unwavering duty to the Crown?

Now, Emmeline and Rainier must work together to find the Beloved—to save the girl from the Folterrans and fulfill the prophecy of peace—while they both battle feelings of remorse, grief, and heartbreak, trying to ignore the heated desire and simmering attraction between them that never left.

Between Wrath and Mercy is book one of The Divine Between series. It contains explicit content and dark elements, including mature language, violence, and sexual content, and it ends on a cliffhanger.

©2022 Jess Wisecup (P)2023 Podium Audio

Loved this!!!!

Ahhhh…..I loved this and I need the next book!!!

There are so many surprising twists and turns, and the romance…gods!!! The passion and spice was of the charts with these two!! I freaking LOVE Rain!!!

This is highly recommended if you love fantasy and romance! But it is so much more than just that, the intense action scenes, being afraid certain characters would die, it has you flying through it to see what is going to happen!! And THE ENDING!!! I’m just gonna say that it’s a good thing book two is already out!!!

Loved it!

Was a great story, and I loved both narrator’s! To bad he was just at the end. However, she did great for all parts! Loved it!

Asleep by Ch. 3

I am surprised I lasted that long. Thought I was being too hasty so backed up, but didn't help. Idk if it was the story or the narrator, tbh. The story was slow and confusing. I get building up intrigue by holding back details, but this story gave me a headache trying g to figure out the foundation of the story aside from the blurb.
The narrator did a decent job with the fmc, but any voices she had to do were horrid.
** Additional thoughts **
Okay, I tried again bc I'm broke, and this book is a decent length. Skipped through a lot again, but it was a hit better than my first try. Emma still bugs me with her waffling. The intricate details of scenes were just filler and unnecessary. The male narrator was good up until he did female voices. Those were awful.
On a good note, the entirety didn't give me a headache. Yay?

Good but LOOONNNNGGGG

I enjoyed the story but there’s too much filler and unnecessarily length in this book!

Beautiful love & Strong mama FMC

I loved this book so much! A love that time just couldn’t shake, deep friendships, found family, secrets unraveling, and political intrigue with gods and goddesses blessings- all the best elements for a five star romantasy!
I also absolutely love the older FMC. She’s been through a lot already in her life and the protective mama bear mode and respect for her changed body all add to my love for this story!

Where is the editor?? At least 15 hrs could be cut

The narrator is great.
The writing appears to be technically good. But goodness, it needed some honest editors. This book is twice as long as it needs to be.

The book's premise is really promising and it starts out fine, but then just gets...lost in the woods on a horse. The mc is a melodramatic woman who can't make up her mind, and despite supposedly being a relatively mature woman and mother, has the internal monologue of an indecisive 20-something, yet never arrives at the conclusion that her entire romatic-emotional level was stunted back at "THE EVENT", which it clearly was. The book falls into soap opera territory, where NOTHING happens in the vast middle portion of the book except a LOT of internal monologing that is mostly rather silly and extremely repetitive.
All for an MC that is VERY not worth it. The jerk lied by omission to the mc early on about something extremely, extremely important thus proving himself to be manipulative trash, imo.
Now, the other plot of this book about the mc's daughter and global politics was really interesting and was the primary focus of the beginning of the book. I was very interested in some resolution to that but my disappointment outpaced my patience before I could locate anything interesting in the last few chapters relating to the daughter and the growing unrest between neighboring nations, or whatever.
It's stunning how much of this book is comprised of angsty internal monologue and princess'ing by a 30-something mother. Definitely a case where a promising book with good foundations was let down by editing, or a lack thereof.

Wow!!!👍👍👍

This book is definitely a slow burn romance and is 27 hours long. But at first I thought it was going to be too slow and not much going on. I give it 5 stars now, it’s definitely worth the build up!!! Narrator is great, World building. Great!! But the last half blew me away!!! Yes Cliff Hanger. If you Like Jennifer L Armentrout, You will Love This Book.

Not the greatest narrator

I’m having a very hard time with her as she sounds like an older Buffy the Vampire Slayer trying to be super serious while drawing out syllables/words for extra seconds that gets annoying very quickly. She’s great for varying voices and read quality, her long word draws is just very off-putting and makes it difficult to get through.

Not my cup of tea

I tried to get into the story. I struggled with the poor view the author has about men in general. I generally like strong female leads. Negative male dominate characters are part of any story but all men? Only listened to chapter four. Story had promise.
Narrator preformed exceptionally. I will be happy to hear her again!

Loved it

Narration was good; male narrator at the end wasn't the best with the female voices. Didn't live how much detail was in the more *intimate* scenes, but overall this story was good and had a twist that I didn't anticipate until we were almost on top of it, which is difficult to achieve for me.