Member Reviews
"I really enjoyed this story!
It was a fun and fast paced book that kept my interest from the start through to the ending, it was a great romantic read!
The book had everything that I look for in a good read, it was well written, had an additive plot and great characters too!
It is 4 stars from me for this one - highly recommended!"
***Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***
This is Jenny Hartwell's first book and, man, I cannot wait for more from her! My Sweet Enemy was steamy and fun with wonderfully complex characters. If you like the enemies-to-loves trope then this is a perfect read for you.
👏👏👏👏👏 Yesssssss!! This was so cute!! I loved all the chocolate references and competition!
I'm a huge chocolate gal, this made me crave for chocolate. I really wish I had a Hershey bar right about now!
This couple was so cute together I cannot. I loved them so much! They are the sweetest. (Hehe get it??) 😂
𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲: Chocolate, Competition, Cuteness, Friendships, Candy, Enemies to Lovers.
When Charlotte left an untenable work situation she didn’t realize the effect it would have on her career and she finds herself in quite the predicament with bills to pay and no income. With the help of her friend she has the opportunity to complete for her dream job and the only thing standing in her way are the other contestants.
Discontent with the family business Luke has decided to forge his own path and his job will help him do that. Charlotte and Luke couldn’t be more different when it comes to their view of the job, but they may just find out the sweetest reward is not the job but each other.
The interactions between Charlotte and Luke are entertaining and there are some unique secondary characters that add to the story.
I loved this story and the characters, I read it in one sitting because I couldn't put it down, it was simply amazing!
I adored this! I adored just about everything about it. The cute and tension filled connection between Luke and Charlotte had a realistic feel that I appreciated. Charlotte is a bubbly and happy chocolatier hoping to snag the dream job of a lifetime. Luke is sealed off, icey and looking to prove his worth to his father. He's not their to make connections. Together they are just two of the five chosen to intern for the lucrative Chief of Chocolates position.
When Luke finds out the sexy Charlotte was not just an airport run-in but a competitor, he puts his emotions into the vault and his game face on. Charlotte, with her kind nature and vibrant persona can't understand why he seems to hate her. If I was in her shoes and had a guy treating me like crap right off the bat I'd react like she did. And ohhhhh man, the tension and rivalry in the beginning was epically great! I think I verbally had a few "oh no they didn't" comments come out of my mouth. The sexual banter when things heat up is perfection. Let's not forget that this novel is filled with two of my other favorite things: reality tv and chocolate!
There is a lot of depth into topics not just about specialty chocolate making, but also conflict diamonds, ethical business practices, depression and a touch on race in the workplace. Call it my reality tv loving side but I even enjoyed the side characters and everything they brought to the book. I did get frustrated with the reasons for the back and forth between Luke and Charlotte. Communication is totally key! Outside of that I was just smitten with this novel!
I recommend this one to all of my sexy romance readers who enjoy reality tv type challenges and eyebrow waggling chemistry. Thank you to Entangled Publishing for the opportunity to review this novel for an honest review.
My Sweet Enemy is a delightful book! I suggest not reading this while hungry or you may end up craving lots and lots of chocolate.
Charlotte is a recently unemployed chocolate maker who finds herself part of an internship competition for a dream job. Things get complicated when her antagonistic relationship with Luke, one of the other interns, starts to heat up.
The competition aspect was fun and I loved seeing all the ideas each person brought to the table. I learned a lot about chocolate making from bean to bar, but the info wasn't overwhelming or too technical. The chocolate factory is in Seattle and there was so many fun details about the area that were included. I have lived there my whole life and loved all the references.
Luke was such a good guy, and it was nice getting his POV. It really helped me to like him when he seemed so stiff and standoffish at first. He and Charlotte were so sweet together, a perfect match.
I want to say thank you to NetGalley and entangled publishing for allowing me to read and review this copy.
I absolutely loved this story! This is my fave trope so I was loving the back and forth banter of Luke and Charolette, Put on top of the fact that they were interning for the same company this book just hit all of my tropes left and right. I loved that they were competing for different spots at the chocolate factory, but were so in-sync with one another that they constantly came up with similar ideas even though they "hated" one another. The things they got up to while fighting and bantering had me literally laughing out loud. I loved Luke's character so much, he's definitely added to my list of book boyfriends! If you are looking for a quick read with steamy parts and full-on rom-com this is the book for you.
This was a cute, chocolate-filled book and when there's chocolate, I'm always interested.
However, the description for the book and the book itself is very different. Charlotte and Luke are competing with 3 other candidates to get a spot as a C-level executive in a gourmet chocolate company. They are required to go through a series of competitions in order to gain a coveted spot.
I really liked the premise but this was a really confusing book. I didn't think that Charlotte or Luke had chemistry except for when it was written that they had chemistry. Luke is too cold, even if he is just really awkward. Charlotte is way too clumsy and her clumsiness doesn't lead to funny moments, they're more just cringy.
This book might not have been my cup of tea, but someone else could really enjoy it.
I received an ARC via NetGalley for an honest review.
Sweeter than a box of truffles
4 stars
This is the debut novel by Jenny Hartwell and by and large it’s a cute, sweet and fun enemies to lovers story. I would also class it as new adult as our characters are 21 and 24, and quite often they very much act like it. Goodreads also says this only has 150 pages but it’s actually got nearly 300 - so my expectations of an insta-hate to insta-love story were never going to happen.
This was an enemies to lovers story but wow - this pair really took enemies to the extreme. At times they were downright vicious to each other. I had hoped that Charlotte could have at least taken the high road or stayed true to her kind personality - but that’s what I meant by the pair acting young.
Like others, the competition aspect was a bit confusing to me. Surely a successful company already has good food techs, marketers and business professionals? And how can you have a competition with such different specialities? But I went with it and it was fun just to watch the show.
Charlotte was a sweet and kind girl and I liked her a lot. Luke was a little bit more of a mystery to me. Harsh and cold at the start, he seemed to have a massive personality shift once he and Charlotte got together. I still liked him in those times but he seemed like a completely different person BC and AC (before Charlotte and after Charlotte). Oh but he wore glasses (something I’d have liked the cute cover to show) which makes him damn near perfect in my eyes. Love me a sexy nerd. The pair had an interesting chemistry and I did like their interactions. The sexy times were nicely naughty and I felt the feelings so I was happy. And if the ending didn't give me a quick tear in my eye then the acknowledgements definitely did!
There were a few soapbox moments which were quite heavy handed but apart from that, the writing flowed and I kept turning those pages. I was engaged and interested from beginning to end. I also laughed out loud on numerous occasions - Ms Hartwell’s humour definitely shone through.
A nice cast of supporting characters also added some meat to the bones, although why authors use characters with the same first initial bothers me greatly. Surely I’m not the only one that gets muddled when trying to remember which one was Simone and which one was Sofia.
I enjoyed this book and it really was a sweet treat with a dash of humour and heat. I will definitely look out for further books by Jenny Hartwell, especially if she plans to give Megan and Damien their own story. 4 stars from me.
My Sweet Enemy is a solid three star read. I do wish it was written in the first person, but the writing still flowed nicely.
Charlotte, a chocolatier, gets chosen for a internship contest ending in a lucrative job offer. She has to compete against four other interns, one of them being Luke. Even though Charlotte can feel the connection between her and Luke from the beginning, he does everything to stay away from Charlotte and when he does talk to her he is rude and passive. Even still, Charlotte doesn’t give up and wants to get through his walls.
The story was sweet, but some parts of the competition were a little too detailed for me and I started skimming over those parts. Charlotte was an okay MC, but I felt like there was nothing special about her. Luke had a more interesting back story, but even the story with his dad was too long at times.
Overall I think this could’ve been a little shorter, but was a nice feel- good story.
I received a free advanced copy from the author/ publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
This was meh. This started off strong but quickly became a two star read for me.
This definitely had the enemies to lovers trope on it but I think they stayed enemies for too long. I never felt the romance or intimacy between the two. Not sure why all of a sudden they were together. I mean the hero is a jerk to her pretty much from the beginning for no reason other than he’s mad he’s attracted to her. Plus his apology is kind of lame. If I were Charlotte I wouldn’t have accepted it.
The competition dragged on for me. The challenges and side characters were not interesting enough for me.
Unfortunately in my opinion this was disappointing.
An unexpected delight. I always love to discover a new author and it’s even better when it’s great. I would label this a rom com but it is so much more. Charlotte is the character everyone wants to be friends with and she makes chocolate for a living. Luke reminds me of the kid on the playground who just wants to make it through recess. There are some truly hilarious moments as they go challenges for the contest. It is really sweet as they get to know each other and realize that they can be friends. The ending is a touching surprise.
My confession of the day: I requested this book simply because, well, chocolate. It was seriously on this basis alone that I rushed to grab this read because it revolved around a chocolate factory, romance or not be damned.
But there were things that I couldn’t look away from that made the premise of the story somewhat odd. The premise of how Charlotte’s friend managed to get her signed up to this internship at a chocolate manufacturer by a poorly-filmed video was an unbelievable one, compounded by the fact that even weirder contestants—comic-relief types for parody purposes—were chosen in this reality-show-type series.
Despite the story containing the enemies-to-lovers trope, the initial portrayals of Luke/Charlotte weren’t exactly appealing. If I found Luke too aloof, stoic and quick to jump to conclusions, Charlotte was even harder to like, her actions seemingly driven by her insecurity in needing everyone to like her. Thrown off simply she was used to everyone liking her (and unhappy when Luke didn’t), she devolved to spying on his ideas then accused him of stealing hers, becoming hysterically petulant and flaky in the process while swinging between lust and hate. That she was too ready to always think the worst of Luke—even towards the end—didn’t bode well for a pairing that I wanted to root for.
Consequently, I was cringing at the ‘crackling of electricity’ between them which felt more awkward than steamy. I tried to go on, but Luke/Charlotte together just seemed too contrived, even up to the halfway point when it felt as though these two weren’t even trying to get along but trying to rationalise their own bad behaviours towards one another.
I wish I could have liked the romance here as much as I adore chocolate and while the latter is pretty much an eternal favourite, I’m afraid this book didn’t quite go down as smoothly as the chocolate ganache I normally devour by the ton.
This book was like a Hallmark movie, in book form. It was super cute and I loved it so much. I loved Charlotte and how intense she was about chocolate. I also loved how detailed the Jenny Hartwell was about chocolate/truffle creation and the chocolate process in general. I went to a truffle making class when I was in Belgium a few years ago and it was so much fun, but so hard, and that's what parts of this book reminded me of (and it made me want to make truffles again). I loved the idea of an internship competition with challenges to help decide who gets to be the next Chief _____ at Simone's Chocolates- it was such a creative and interesting concept for a book and it definitely kept me hooked! I also really liked all of our main characters and our supporting characters- even the villain- I didn't want this story to end when it did! I wanted to keep reading about Charlotte, Luke, Megan, Sofia, and Chad and see what happened to them after the internship competition and sure we got an epilogue, but it felt so short! Overall, I loved this book and it was the perfect quick contemporary romance!
This book hooked me right from the start! The friendship between Charlotte and her best friend Beth reminded me so much of my best friend and I! Then you add chocolate, competition, a hot guy and some steamy scenes to all add up to a wonderful read! When Charlotte quit her job she didn’t expect to be shunned by the entire industry in the city due to her boss. When her best friend Beth signs her up for an internship vying for a job, her whole world changes. Luke Wells has just left all that he has ever known to stand up for what he feels is right. This leads him to the same competition and potentially, to the love of his life! This book gave me all the heart eyes 😍 and emotions I could handle! It was a roller coaster of emotions throughout but in a good way! My Sweet Enemy by Jenny Hartwell truly is a sweet and sexy read!
Loved this Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-esque story! Mix romantic comedy with chocolate and you have a sure-fire winner in my opinion!
I'm not a lover of reality TV, except when it comes to cooking shows so as this was chocolate I felt that fell in the food category, lol. Charlotte has left her last job due to her odious boss and gets entered for a reality type show where a job at a prestigious Chocolate Company is up for grabs. Charlotte sets off for Seattle for what could be the opportunity of a lifetime.
One slight wrinkle in the plan - she actually LIKES her fellow intern hopefuls. Especially one tall, handsome, very rigid and a stickler for ethical business practices, Luke. Can she mix a possible romance and the cut-throat competition for the internship? Or will both pass her by?
Plenty of laughs, hot passion, sweet, sweet chocolate, and a truly inspiring collection of interns "amirite?" LOL. All the interns brought something different to the story and I loved the fact that whilst all competing for the job, a true friendship developed between them. Well, most of them!
I'd happily read more from these characters.
Thank you NetGalley, Entangled Publishing and Jenny Hartwell for gifting me an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion!
WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS BOOK WITHOUT CHOCOLATE. (and lots of it!)
I’m such a sucjer for an enemies-to-lovers trope. Throw in a cooking competition and I was sold! There were more than a few laughable moments that kept me flipping pages just to see what would happen next. I would’ve liked the completion portion to be flushed out a little more just to get a better idea of the whole thing, but I still enjoyed it. In December I read Jingle Wars and I got the same fun and flirty competitive vibe from Charlotte and Luke. TThe plot follows a predictable timeline, but seriously who doesn’t love knowing what you’re getting sometimes?
This was sweet read, cute and sweet.
This wasn't really romantic read, yes is romance novel, but I wish there were a little bit more romance between them.
There is this whole instant attraction, but i just couldn't feel the real love between them...
As I said cute story and it is for me 3.8 stars.
SOOO GOOD!
I really love the banter between Charlotte and Luke, the plot is an intership kind of competition for a chocolate factory (Willy Wonka vibes) and through the book we get to see how Luke and Charlotte developed from enemy to something else!!
This book was so sweet and I will definitely recommend to read it if you like The Hating Game by Sally Thorne!!