3.5 stars** Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC audiobook of this book. This review is my honest and truthful feedback of this book!

This book started so good and I really enjoyed the magic, world building, and character development at the beginning. However, with that I felt lost at some points in this book and I wasn’t sure what was actually happening. There were a few times I thought the book was about to wrap up and I would see I still have 30% left in the book. I enjoyed some of the characters at the beginning but I found to become more unlikeable as the story went on. I didn’t really have anyone in particular I was rooting for in this book.

I normally am not big on fantasy or sci-fi books but normally I like magic books and a little bit of dystopian style but this one I think just wasn’t exactly for me. At some points I wondered if I missed a first book because I didn’t know what was happening or why something was important and it wouldn’t be told until later in the book why the events 100 pages ago was important.

Don’t get me wrong this wasn’t a bad book by any means I just don’t think Olivie Blake’s writing style is for me and I really enjoyed some parts of this book. I enjoyed the secret love between some of the characters. I also enjoyed the world building but I just didn’t see enough of what I thought I would in this book.

Overall it wasn’t a horrible book and if you like Olivie Blake’s other books I would definitely check this one out for sure. I just think this book didn’t suit me and what I like to read and that’s totally okay!

One for My Enemy is a Romeo and Juliet retelling, enhanced with witchy magic and a dash of Slavic folklore, all wrapped in the words of a gifted storyteller.

I listened to this on audio, and Ferdelle Capistrano, the narrator, did a brilliant job. She altered her voice just enough to distinguish characters, while still sounding natural. I loved the way she embodied the characters, the mood, and the overall tone of the story. I was hooked throughout.

We start out with a list of characters and their relationships, and it’s LONG. I thought, Uh-oh. I expected a disastrous ordeal trying to keep them all straight. But it wasn’t an issue at all. The way the story unfolds gives us time to get to know everyone. Their relationships are clear, their personalities are unique, and I easily followed every step.

The story is an intense adventure, with unexpected twists and moments of levity to lighten the mood. I love Olivie Blake’s creativity and writing style!

I was really enjoying this one... until it became unbearable. I don't know if maybe it was the audiobook narration and the speed I chose to listen to it in that made this even longer than it already is but I have this feeling that maybe Olivie's writing style is not for me as much as I want it to be. Every character that I could have loved became so annoying and unbearable just for the sake of being complex and dark and nitty gritty. Like even the characters I enjoyed reading about I just hated by the end it was so frustrating.

I thought the book was going to wrap up BUT IT JUST KEPT GOING??? AND FOR WHAT??? It felt like there was no payoff by the end which is just so frustrating to me.

I really liked the world building and the magic incorporated with the real world and everything, but I just felt like half of the book was this pretentious mess that didn't need to be there. And while I definitely vibe with purple prose pretentiousness, this was just overdone to the point where there was too much filler gap in my opinion.

I'm sure this hits for some people because 50% of the book hit for me... but otherwise this just dragged on too much. Also, if I hear this narrator rasp the names of Dima, Sasha, Masha, or Roma ever again I'll scream. Like ho many times do you need to repeat the names for the drama?????

Overall, it was just okay but I think I just grew too frustrated by the lack of payoff and the overall length.

I received this as an audio galley to listen to for free in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for giving me access.

I.
LOVED.
THIS.

I am a sucker for retellings, especially ones that have a s Shakespearean vibe to it...and this one did -- plus some Russian folklore! It was even played out into Acts and Scenes. Blake did a wonderful job of creating this story and world. I wish it was longer even though the story has reached its curtain call and was wrapped up beautifully.

Move over Romeo, Dimitri has stole your thunder.

To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect from One for My Enemy. With our recent resurgence of Olivie Blake love, all I knew about this was "Romeo and Juliet" vibes with witches. But Blake delivers a story that transforms whatever you might be expecting. It's a story that deeply explores family, love and feuds. I adored the way Blake gives this family a sense of scope, difficult dynamics, and bad blood that felt utterly relatable. At the same time, the characters are entrancing.

Each of them never ceases to be fascinating. How the world can portray us, and especially women, as 'monstrous'. Or the ways in which women's refusal can turn us into enemies. There's nothing more dangerous than a man scorned. On one level, One for My Enemy is founded on what we become to fight for ownership of our own decisions, consequences, and power. All the things we have to give up - our name, our family, our love - to be seen.

I devoured the audiobook and Ferdelle Capistrano did an amazing job at elevating the story. Of bringing the character's raw grief, bitter betrayals, and flailing hope to life.

A magical Romeo & Juliet retelling which kept me guessing until the very end. Given that the Romeo & Juliet story is one of the most well-known, it is a true testament to Blake’s impeccable interweaving of various stories and character journeys that I was still shocked when the ultimate scene of the final act occurred. The voice acting immerses you in the story, and each character felt like they had blood and guts in the game. I couldn’t guess where the story would go next, and no character was predictable nor completely moral (always a gripping combination!)

I want to like Olivie Blake's books, but I just don't (it's definitely an "it's me, not you" situation). Blake's writing is lyrical and definitely fits within the world of playwrights. There are pretty moving quotes that move the reader to a swooning motion; however, I didn't feel connected to this book beyond, "ooo, pretty writing."

Blake sets the stage, so to speak, with two families of witches that are vying for wealth and dominion in the backdrop of NY. They obtain and sell creatures and magical drugs, and fight blood with blood (they clearly haven't heard of the concept that an "eye for an eye makes the world blind"). Amidst all of this fighting is the fight for and loss of love - the typical star-crossed lovers.

The first issue I had with this book is a personal preference and one I should have done more research on - I rarely like Romeo and Juliet retellings. Although I feel that Blake's story does deviate from a strict retelling, I couldn't get behind the characters. Imagine this: a tale as old as time with two warring families (all kind of unlikeable and very much morally gre), multiple plays for power, and The Bridge, who just happens to be THE central part of the story since he has dealings with Every. Single. Character. Ever. I also didn't really like the concept of having Romeo and Juliet times two - literally two sets of star-crossed lovers, what are the odds? I was more invested in the description of past loves than the current story, which made this book not my cup of tea.

The main issue I had with the audiobook in particular was the narrator. I think this book, with as many characters as it tried to support, could have benefitted from a male narrator AND a female narrator for more diversity in voices. Most of the characters were made to sound breathy, sick, or trying too hard to be sultry, and it distracted me from Blake's prose.

I know a lot of readers love the niche that Blake inhabits - this was just my experience trying to force my way through this book.

I do sincerely appreciate Olivie Blake, MacMillan Audio, and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to listen to this book and provide my honest feedback.

I really enjoyed the warring families approach, in modern day NYC. I loved the narrator who made the story come alive.

I actually enjoyed the story. What I didn’t enjoy is the format. It’s a play. That’s fine, I wasn’t prepared for that going in, but that’s my fault - I’m sure it’s widely known I just can’t say I looked.

The play format on audio really took away from the magic of the story. Hearing “act x scene x” was very distracting and I found myself losing the magic of the previous moment, only to gain it back just in time to lose it again. I can usually block out chapters, but the act and scene was too much for me to block out I guess.

While the narrator was great, due to what I’ve said above, I wouldn’t recommend the audio. I’d get a different format. I think that would be a better way to enjoy this story. It is quite good, and I recommend the story but maybe not on audio.

Thanks to NetGalley for the audiobook!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I feel that the more I let the story sit and marinate with me and revisit it time and time again I can see the potential of this story slow burning into a 5-star.

As a huge fan of Olivie Blake's Alone with You in the Ether, which was my favorite 2022 release I read last year, I felt very safe in the masterfully adept creative mind and hands for this venture into her newest Tor Books/Macmillan Audio release, One For My Enemy. A couple of my close trusted friends had dug into the story before I had the chance to, and were all raving. So as deflated as I was attempting to temper my expectations going into this read, reminding myself this is a genre shift from literary fiction to magical fantasy drama, it was hard not to allow some moderate-to-high excitement for an incoming masterpiece to creep in and Ms. Olivie Blake took that excitement and said here's an all you can eat feast of serotonin.

In One For My Enemy, we meet Baba Yaga and the Antonova sisters and Koschei the Deathless and the Fedorov brothers; two NYC witch dynasties who have been at war for over 12 years. Each family not only struggles for power against each other, but also within themselves. When a brother and a sister from each respective empire are drawn together by fate, a series of destructive events start to devolve in their wake, carrying each family and its members to the brink of implosion.

I loved how unexpected the story felt even knowing going in that One For My Enemy is a Romeo and Juliet interpolation interwoven with Baba Yaga lore. There was so much drama going on that was all so juicy and chaotic it felt like a feature length witchy Succession in the best way. The twists and turns felt surprising and shocking. Multiple moments stole my breath and had my jaw hanging open on the floor. (Multiple annotations of mine are just "!!! the DRAMA"). You fall in love with more characters and relationships than you can even anticipate. Even the modernization of the text having a screenplay feel updated from Shakespeare's dramaturgy was such a slam dunk for me and had me in awe of Blake's technical prowess and skill. (I would absolutely love to see this story adapted to screen, preferably in a miniseries but honestly in any form). I have read other reviews critiquing the pacing, but I found the pacing to be well balanced and restrained, which is needed to manage the many storylines, characters, and complex relationships that are being juggled at once. I felt the format further enhanced the ability of the reader to track each through-line and not get lost while navigating their way through the various stories until they finally converge.

The narration by Ferdelle Capistrano was absolutely perfect. I really loved the vocal performance as a whole and felt the emotions infused into each of the various characters felt authentic and true. I found myself multiple times laughing out loud or moved to tears.

"You are you, an entire whole, all on your own, If you have loved and been loved, then you are richer for it; you don't simply become a smaller version of yourself simply because what you once had is gone."

Most recommend for people who love: Romeo and Juliet, Baba Yaga anything, <i>Succession, Practical Magic (1998), The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Warm Bodies (2013), Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006), A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson, <i>Veronica Mars, the Grishaverse, Anastasia/Romanov lore, ACOTAR series by Sarah J. Maas and Pretty Little Liars the series (both in terms of the sheer amounts of intense happenings, dramas, and relationships chaotically interweaving with each other), The Kiss Curse by Rachel Hawkins, Vox Lux (2018), The VVitch (2016), and Olivie Blake's other works.

Definitely I book I recommend is great to read during any season of the year, but buddy reading this book with a group of friends in October would be next level FUN. Book clubs across the nation should start planning this now and pair it with a screening of The VVitch (2015) -- if you've read the book and seen the film you know why.

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Tor Books for a review copy of the audiobook in exchange for my honest review, to Olivie Blake for their art, and to Ferdelle Capistrano for bringing that art to life with their own art.

One for My Enemy is the story of Romeo and Juliet, but make them rival witch families in modern-day New York City and add in Russian inspiration.

This novel has Olivie Blake’s classic strong character building, but I just wasn’t that invested in the story itself. I think the concept was cool, and the way she inverts the original Romeo and Juliet story was fun to see, but I just kept getting lost in the vast cast of characters and all the Russian naming.

Even though this is Blake’s weakest novel I’ve read by her so far, I would still recommend it to fans of Romeo and Juliet retellings. The audio narrator was great and I would recommend the audiobook to those interested in reading this story.

Oh, what a tangled web she weaves. I never thought I would so love a story of doomed romances, shady dealings and re-dealings, family love, loyalty, and dysfunction. Here I stand, a fan.

What keeps pulling me back to Blake's stories is her unwavering willingness to make villains of both the good and the not-so-good. Evil is never clear cut with her characters and I love that, because everyone person has a certain level of complexity with a capacity for being evil. Everyone gets a chance to choose for themselves, most times in a roundabout way and when they embrace it, it is great to see on the page.

With witches, fae, shadow creatures, and the living dead, One For My Enemy was quite enjoyable. From the very first unrequited love to the two that follow in the next generation, I was invested in this story of two families using their unique talents to build empires and garner power, to the deals made and unmade to undercut each other, to the banter and the constant plotting.

There isn't much world-building here as it is set in a fairly modern New York and I didn't mind in the least as it was the characters and their interactions that I was most interested in and that hooked me into the story.

And what intentions there were. All the plans that are dismantled and remade, the truths and lies that motivate, the loss and grief that begins to forge changes in all, but at the root of it, it was the loyalty to family and the greatest hurt that comes when one is betrayed by family, that remains with me.

I made it 72% of the way through this audiobook, and I am giving up - both on this book and this author.

1 star for the book, and a second for the narration.

When I saw another (audio)book by Olivie Blake, I jumped at the chance to review it. I really enjoyed Atlas Six, after all. To be fair, it is not terribly written. And that audiobook narrator is great. This is probably why I made it as far as I did (and I REALLY did give it my best effort).

Three major problems with this (audio)book led me to throw my hands in the air in exasperation at 72% through, and decide that I just didn't care what happened to these characters. First, had the synopsis clearly stated that it is a re-write of Romeo and Juliet (my most disliked Shakespeare), I would never have picked it up. Not stating this in the synopsis - when it so clearly IS a re-write - is pretty misleading.

Second, all of the characters are almost thoroughly hate-able. I had this problem with Atlas Paradox as well (thus just giving up on this author completely). I really don't care if any of them live or die, and that is HUGE for me to say about any storybook characters. All I need is one character that I can empathize with for me to deeply want to know their fate, regardless of all other flaws that the book carries. But Olivie Blake writes characters so utterly hate-able that it isn't worth my time to find out what happens in the end.

Third - I don't know what the author's heritage is, and I'm not sure if she carries any Slavic ancestry - but I find it incredibly problematic that she would publish a book where the characters choose to appropriate such historical, revered Slavic beings as Baba Yaga and her like, just after the 1 year anniversary of Russia's appalling invasion and attempted mass genocide of Ukrainian people. Doing a mash-up of Romeo and Juliet to the theme of historic Slavic tales while a cruel dictator does his best to wipe and entire sovereign nation off the map?! Barf. The only way that I will retract this third, very disturbing, problem from my list is if the author is Ukrainian herself (I am doubting it from her photo).

Gratitude to the publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with a temporary copy of this audiobook, in exchange for my (very) honest opinion. I truly hope that Macmillan Audion doesn't blacklist me for pretty much hating this one.

Really enjoyed the narrator! I enjoyed ONE FOR MY ENEMY - the rivalry between the two witch families felt very Shakespeare-esque. The plot twists and unexpected turns were interesting, and I loved the setting of “magical Manhattan.”

I DNF’d this book about 40% of the way in. I wanted to like it so badly, but it was so boring. There was almost no plot driving the story, and the two love stories were just weird. This one was just not for me.

a heart-wrenching, captivating story about power, loyalty, family ties, and sacrifice. it's an epic love story and a tragedy all in one. complete with olivie blake's trademark stunning prose, this grabbed my attention immediately and i didn't want to put it down. the twists and turns are unpredictable and the depth of character makes you wonder who to root for. if you read this with your ears, the narrator (ferdelle capistrano) gives a great performance!

ps: if you like succession (the tv show) and stories with magic, try this one out❣️

*thank you macmillan audio for the AlC & tor books for the gifted finished copy!

ARC provided by Publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to thank MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for sending me a copy of this ARC. Olivie Blake has a close place in my heart and it has been wonderful to watch her thrive as she has made the transition from a self published author to traditional publishing.

This story is what you get if you mix Practical Magic with Romeo and Juliet. From the beginning of the story I expected Lev and Sasha to be our main focus but loved that we stemmed in so many relationships, and the exploration of Marya and Dima's relationship had me clinging on so heavily to all of the characters instead of just one. I'll say it loudly for the people in the back--I need more of the twins and less of Roma. The Drama between Staz and Dima and Masha had me tense throughout it all wondering when it would come to a head, and it did in glorious fashion.

I do think at times it was drawn out a bit too much. I thought the story was almost at its end only to find myself only at about the 58% threshold. I think I would have loved reading it but I am thankful I listened to the audiobook. The narrator preformed beautifully and has made me want to seek her out in other works.

This story has made me excited to finally dive into the rest of Olivie's back catalogue and I cannot wait to see where she goes with her new books.

I really wanted to enjoy this one. Romeo and Juliet is one of my favorite stories, so to see someone put this twist on it? I was thrilled! The pacing of this one is slow and yet not? If that makes sense a bit anticlimactic if I really wanted to narrow it down. There were definitely moments where major things happened and it ended up so lost in everything and the writing that I hardly realized. The writing however is beautiful just hard for this book.

I wanted to enjoy this more than I did :/ I really liked the Romeo and Juliet inspiration blended with witchcraft and drama - I just wanted more drama haha. It was a good plot overall - not too boring where I found myself snoozing off or getting distracted. The characters were well rounded but could have done with a little more depth.

This was such an interesting book. Two families intertwined through love and hate, each battling to be the best of the witches. Their families have been at war with each other for the last 15ish years and when one family finds the other family has been buying their product and selling it for a higher profit they take it as an insult. One family strikes at the other, and the other responds in kind....or responds with a statement. This is part family rivlary, part mystery, part romance of at least 4 characters. I enjoyed reading this book a lot and give it 4 out of 5 stars. I did think the book went a little longer than it needed to and felt it could have ended sooner, but otherwise this was really great.