When the immortals steal everything you love, what choice remains but to walk willingly into their domain? This question pulses at the heart of A Vow in Vengeance by Jaclyn Rodriguez, a debut that ignites the romantasy genre with the fury of its protagonist and the intensity of forbidden magic. Rodriguez doesn’t ease readers into her world—she throws them headfirst into a realm where tarot cards channel deadly power, where humans are transformed into changelings against their will, and where the line between love and hatred burns as hot as the volcanic landscape surrounding the Forge.
The Architecture of Rage
Rune Ryker has spent six years perfecting the art of survival after the immortals tore her family apart. Her mother was taken. Her father disappeared. And her twin brother vanished into elven hands when they were children. Now twenty years old and working as the Wraith of Westfall—a spy trafficking in secrets and blackmail—Rune orchestrates her own Selection, the annual reaping of one hundred mortals as penance for a war she barely remembers. Her plan appears simple: cross the Wall separating mortals from immortals, locate her family, and escape. Reality, as she discovers within moments of her transformation into a changeling, operates under crueler mathematics.
A Vow in Vengeance by Jaclyn Rodriguez constructs its world with meticulous attention to the mechanics of oppression. The druids of Sedah don’t simply conquer—they transform, binding changelings with magical oaths that prevent escape and enforce obedience. The Forge, their college for tarot magic, becomes both prison and proving ground. Rodriguez captures the disorientation of Rune’s new existence with visceral precision: the shock of altered features, the humiliation of nonconsensual transformation, the rage that courses through veins alongside newfound power.
The magic system anchors the narrative’s dark academia elements with sophisticated elegance. Each student receives a deck of tarot cards, conduits to twenty-two types of magical gifts called Major Arcana. The Magician transforms materials through alchemy. Death commands shadows. The Emperor wields telekinesis. These cards require both intention and energy, with the ever-present risk of burning alive from within if a wielder channels more power than their body can withstand. Rodriguez layers this with Minor Arcana that enhance abilities and the storytelling properties of tarot readings, creating a magic system that feels both ancient and intricately balanced.
Prince of Darkness, Queen of Vengeance
The revelation that Rune possesses the World Arcana—the rarest and most powerful magic, capable of wielding all other abilities—transforms her from anonymous changeling to immediate target. She’s assigned to share living quarters with the only other World Arcana wielder: Prince Draven Vos, the Blood Prince of Sedah, heir to the druid kingdom, and exactly the kind of arrogant immortal Rune has spent years learning to destroy.
Their first encounters crackle with animosity that Rodriguez renders with delicious specificity. Draven moves through the Forge with lethal grace, wings of midnight blue framing a face too symmetrical to be entirely trustworthy. He saves Rune’s brother from punishment but treats her with cold disdain. He’s been groomed for power since his own Selection as a child, trained by the best instructors the realm can afford, and clearly resents sharing his unique status with a mortal who orchestrated her presence.
The enemies-to-lovers progression in A Vow in Vengeance by Jaclyn Rodriguez avoids the pitfall of instant attraction disguised as hatred. These two genuinely loathe each other. Rune sees in Draven everything she’s fought against—privilege, power, complicity in the system that destroyed her family. Draven views Rune as a threat to his carefully constructed position, a wild card who could upset political arrangements spanning kingdoms. Their eventual alliance forms not from sudden passion but from overlapping desperation. Both need what the other can provide: Draven seeks freedom from an arranged marriage to a seraph princess and escape from his father’s control; Rune needs power and resources to locate her scattered family.
What emerges is a partnership built on pragmatism that slowly transforms into something far more dangerous. Rodriguez writes their intimate scenes with restraint that amplifies tension. A training session becomes charged with unspoken desire. A magical claim that links their minds creates vulnerability neither anticipated. The fake dating element of their arrangement—pretending to be fated mates to satisfy courtly expectations—forces proximity that gradually erodes the walls both have constructed around their hearts.
The Weight of Complex Truths
The narrative’s greatest strength lies in its refusal of simple morality. As Rune navigates the Forge’s curriculum—classes on tarot history, magical theory, divination, sparring—she forms genuine friendships with other changelings while confronting uncomfortable realities. Not all Selected humans want rescue. Some, like Professor Atum, find purpose and even happiness in their new immortal lives. The druids who Selected Rune followed specific criteria: they take only those with no one left in the mortal realm to mourn them, operating under a twisted mercy that considers this kindness.
Rodriguez doesn’t flinch from exploring the costs of vengeance. Rune’s skills as the Wraith involved manipulation, blackmail, and occasionally violence. Her hands aren’t clean. Neither are Draven’s, despite his claims that he’s worked for every ounce of power he possesses. The revelations about Rune’s mother—her role in the Great War, her identity as the Ravager who helped create the Curse afflicting immortals—complicate sympathies and allegiances. A Vow in Vengeance by Jaclyn Rodriguez asks difficult questions about collective punishment, about whether systems can be reformed from within or must be burned entirely, about the possibility of loving someone complicit in your oppression.
The supporting cast enriches this moral complexity:
- Ember: Rune’s first friend at the Forge, possessing the Star Arcana and a pragmatic approach to survival
- Wynter: The quiet Judgment Arcana wielder who harbors his own secrets
- Morgan: Initially friendly, later revealed as part of a changeling resistance movement with dangerous methods
- King Silas: Draven’s adoptive father, a ruler whose protection of power manifests as tyranny
- King Altair: The seraph monarch with golden wings and eyes, seeking something from Rune that threatens multiple kingdoms
The Language of Fire and Shadow
Rodriguez’s prose matches her protagonist’s intensity. Sentences don’t meander—they strike. Description serves character and atmosphere without excess, whether capturing the obsidian beauty of the Forge’s castle, the oppressive heat near the volcanic Mount Hestia, or the electric tension when Draven’s shadows curl possessively around Rune. The pacing rarely falters across the novel’s considerable length, propelling through revelations, training montages, political maneuvering, and explosive confrontations with equal drive.
The dark academia elements manifest through more than setting. A Vow in Vengeance by Jaclyn Rodriguez explores education as both empowerment and indoctrination. The Forge teaches changelings to wield the very magic used to enslave them, creating the possibility of resistance while binding students with oaths that prevent rebellion. Classes become spaces where hierarchies crystallize and prejudices solidify, where Rune must navigate social dynamics as treacherous as any magical duel.
The Promise of More
As the first book in the Immortal Desires series, this debut establishes extensive groundwork for future installments. Major plot threads remain unresolved, particularly regarding Rune’s family members, the mysterious Arcadian Artifacts scattered across kingdoms, and the brewing conflicts between immortal nations. The ending provides emotional satisfaction for the central relationship while escalating external stakes considerably.
Rodriguez demonstrates impressive control over her sprawling narrative, juggling multiple kingdoms (druids, seraphs, elves, and mortals), complex magical systems, political intrigue, and character development without losing coherence. The world-building establishes clear rules while leaving room for discovery, promising deeper exploration of elven territories and seraph realms in subsequent books.
For Readers Seeking Similar Flames
If A Vow in Vengeance by Jaclyn Rodriguez captured your imagination, consider these companions for your next reading journey:
- Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros: For enemies-to-lovers romance set in a deadly magical academy where survival requires mastering dangerous powers
- Powerless by Lauren Roberts: For protagonists navigating oppressive magical hierarchies while falling for princes they should hate
- A Dawn of Onyx by Kate Golden: For mortal heroines thrust into immortal courts who discover unexpected strength and complicated attractions
- The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon: For epic fantasy romance featuring enemies forced into proximity amid political machinations and magical warfare
- Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross: For beautifully written fantasy romance balancing intimate character development with larger conflicts
Final Verdict
A Vow in Vengeance by Jaclyn Rodriguez announces the arrival of a writer unafraid to let her characters burn with authentic rage while building toward something transformative. This debut balances the satisfying tropes romantasy readers crave—enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, fake dating, only one bed—with substantive exploration of power, oppression, and the seductive danger of vengeance. The novel works both as escapist fantasy and as meditation on what we’re willing to sacrifice for those we love, what compromises we’ll accept for survival, and whether systems built on cruelty can ever truly be redeemed.
Rodriguez has crafted a protagonist in Rune who refuses to be saved, who demands agency even when circumstances conspire to strip it away, whose journey from vengeful spy to something more complex mirrors the narrative’s own evolution from revenge tale to nuanced examination of power and its costs. The romance satisfies without overshadowing the larger story of a woman claiming space in a world designed to consume her.
For readers seeking romantasy that burns with conviction, that refuses easy answers while delivering emotional satisfaction, that trusts its audience to navigate moral complexity—A Vow in Vengeance by Jaclyn Rodriguez offers exactly the kind of conflagration worth getting burned by.
