Please please read this book it is everything and more THE enemies to lovers is so ddodososi gorgeous please read this

If you loved the style of humor in Assistant to the Villian, I think this will be right up your alley! Unfortunately, it was a DNF for me around 65%.

Some thoughts:
- The deofols as animal sidekicks were cute, and it was fun seeing the personality similarities between them and their owners
- It was a fantasy world, but it didn’t feel super well developed so a lot of the terms and places felt a little randomly tossed out there which was a touch confusing
- By 65% the characters still felt one dimensional and I didn’t feel any chemistry between them, it made it really hard to be invested in their relationship
- I would’ve liked to see some more tiny similarities or something along the way so the reluctant allies storyline felt a little more fun and less stiff

Now this is the enemies to lover slow burn romance that the book girls are YEARNING for. And when I say slow burn I mean it. The banter between our two main characters? Everything you could hope for and more.

While I couldn’t describe the overall book as light hearted, since our MMC is literally an assassins who does his job on page, the story was still infused with wit and funny moments that was refreshing to read and helped take me out of our world and into this new one.

Also be warned you are dropped directly into the world and it took me a few chapters to orient myself. Thankfully there is a glossary and map which helps.

“Hate could feel strangely like something else.”

Wow! What a STUNNING, debut!!

For the amount of time it took me to adjust to the world building and magic system, I was abundantly rewarded with the absolute delight of these characters. True enemies to their cores, bickering and bantering their way through a reluctant friendship that neither of them are willing to admit turns into something more.

I’m trying not to think too hard about how long I’ll have to wait for the follow up in this duet because my GOD! That ending?! Talk about the slowest of slow burns, the secret denial and pining. When I tell you if you enjoy a slow burn enemies to lovers sent in a fantastical setting, you will DEVOUR THIS!!

Brigitte’s writing is magnificent, and her ability to add humor and whit within some of the more tougher darker scenes was incredible. I’m so beyond looking forward to the conclusion of this duology, I feel as though I have been left hanging in the best way possible. Brigitte offers us taste after taste of the true delicacy that will be Osric and Aurienne’s love.

REAL ENEMIES TO LOVERS ARE SO BACK!!

Let me start by saying I absolutely LOVED Mortifying Ordeal. Now, the pipeline of fic to trad published book is an interesting one and something a few of us are paying attention to. Does a 1:1 repackage of a popular fic (Manacled to Alchemised) work best, or does a brand new book with beloved familiar tropes (Mortifying Ordeal to Irresistible Urge) do better?

I really thought this was going to be a slam dunk. But then...

This needed HARD edits. Every line was about 6 words too long. Every paragraph had at least one sentence that was run through AI or a thesaurus and it needed to chillllll out. The amount of unnecessary words in this book was equivalent to how many unnecessary words I put in my goodreads reviews. The only issue is that, this is a stream of conscience rant, and the other is a....professionally published book...that has EDITORS.

Let's get into it a bit deeper. All anyone wants in a romance story is some good banter. Especially when it's enemies to lovers but this book had the audacity of....giving us an overview of the banter? It wasn't even written out for us to read?????!

25% of the way into this book we get told: "Aurienne and Mordaunt were able to give vent to their feelings." And you're like, fantastic; can't wait to hear them tear each other apart. But no. We get this: "Mordaunt said that what Aurienne really wanted was a more Elastic Spirit; she was an unbearable combination of high handed and small minded. Aurienne said thank you; she would consult him next time she needed advice...."

So we don't even get the fun banter dialogue???

And it keeps going. "Mordaunt, vexed, said how dare she, when her bun looked like a perfect onion? Aurienne informed him, by the by, that she would never again offer a second healing at the full moon, and that he would be lucky if she showed up at all."

BOOOOOO.

Here's the thing. You can do this later. LATER in the story. At the start we need that banter to pull us in. We need to get excited about the enemies being petty and snarky. But you cannot spend the first 5 chapters info dumping world building to me and then give me THAT in place of banter.

The problem here is that the first 40% of this book is info dumping. It's like Knightley wrote it as HP fan fic, then went back through and changed up all the names. Which...okay...fine. Except there are 7 books and 8 movies of HP to explain things in that world, and we aren't trying to cram it all into the first 40% of a book. And EVERYTHING has a new name. Magic has it's own name. When you're setting up a world we need SOME things to be easy. We don't need a new name for "magic." You're busy trying to explain what a patronus is without using the word patronus. Just call magic magic. There's too much for people to understand and remember as you go. And yes, the average HP fan will be able to understand what these things are, but is that the only audience we're aiming for? Surely we want MORE readers to enjoy this fun book with delightful banter (which does come later). If I have to be familiar with an entire series of other books in order to read yours, then I don't want it. Also, maybe I missed it, but I was assuming this book was set in a New World, not OUR world with a secret magic world underneath it a la Harry Potter. I thought this was just a brand new setting, which is why we needed the 700 new names for everything. But NO. Apparently it's here, on God's green earth, because there are mentions of Romans and Norse and freaking Lord Byron.

Knightley can actually write, that's what makes this so frustrating. The banter (when she writes it), the jokey sentences, and FUN she has a knack for are absolutely fantastic when she isn't bogging her sentences down with unnecessary adjectives and made up words. It feels like she got a little lost trying to be witty and fun and it ends up coming across as really convoluted and irritating. She made the patronuses (deofols) the most RANDOM animals in the world. Genuinely, I googled one of them because I thought it was another made up creature but no! It's real! But it's soooo niche. And then I made a comment about this to a friend and she joked oh is there an axolotl? And I was like, there is! in fact! an axolotl! And that's not even the niche animal!

After the first 40% you really get into the story and you start to see the character development and the relationship come through and it gets FUN. You see the banter, something in Knightley's writing loosens up, you finally understand the 17000 new terms you have to know. And it's a joy. I flip flopped back and forth with this rating so much because I read the first chapter and said, 5 stars. Then I kept reading and that went to 3 stars, then to 2, and at one point I thought this was going to be a 1 star read. I thought I was going to dnf it. But I kept going and it bounced back up and I was settling on 3 stars, but this is going to be a duology and the problem is...this book just....ends. It does not end in a nice spot. It doesn't end on a cliff hanger, not really, but it also doesn't really end in a natural ending point. It feels like it ends mid-page. And that was really rough after finally making it to the end. At least give me something exciting for book 2. Make me want to pick that next one up because I have to see where this goes. I'm so disappointed with the whole thing.

This books needs edits. Hard plot edits. Because once you get past the initial info dumping, it has that same fun charm that MO has, but you have to slog through way too much to get there and I worry people aren't going to be able to enjoy Knightley's writing further in because they will give up early on.

Please, I want this book to do well. So this is less a rant and more of a plea. Please, tighten up that first half, I beg of you.

4.25 stars!

I ate this up UGH, I'm so not ready to have to wait for the next book. It was so so much fun.

Osric is a badass, bloodthirsty assassin...with a little problem. His source of power is rotting, and if he loses his magic his Order will kill him. Aurienne, a no-nonsense healer with a specialty in his condition, is his only hope. Unfortunately, their Orders are rivals and she is particularly not fond of him, but when they're forced to work together who knows what could happen? (We all know exactly what could happen!) I'm not going to belabor the "this is published fanfic" point because I think everyone else will do it for me but I will say that I'm glad some fanfic conventions (fun chapter titles, endless banter, getting to the point, etc) are being brought to the world of traditional publishing. This book was just a joy to read, the dynamic was awesome and I was really pleasantly surprised by the world-building. It's not crazy complex but it's interesting and atmospheric and doesn't have any of the tropes that annoy me ('deadly trials' this is about you). Keep in mind this is slooow burn, we're almost certainly only getting crumbs until the latter half of the second book. Having said that, I can't wait!

Romantasy and non-romantasy fans, keep your eye out for this! It has something for everyone.

Thank you to Brigitte Knightley and Ace for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Happy reading!

I had no idea that "The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy" was originally a fanfic when I requested it, and to be honest, if I had known I would likely have skipped it. A few chapters in and I realized that tweaked fanfic was exactly what it was - albeit fanfic written by someone with talent and a decent coat of paint slapped over the familiar vague worldbuilding. It's that worldbuilding that's the biggest issue here - there's just not a lot to it. The characters, likewise, are extremely two-dimensional, with a sense of humor that feels more like it should belong to teenagers than twenty-somethings.

So yeah, this was a miss for me. I read plenty of fanfic and don't have a problem with it, but when I reach for a novel, I don't expect to be able to *tell* it was originally a fanfic within the first few chapters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

I would recommend if you're looking for (SPOILERS)

-m/f fantasy romance
-enemies/rivals to lovers
-an agreement
-slow burn
-I hate how attractive I find you
-who hurt you

I had a lot of fun with this one. The banter, the back and forth, the slow burn.

Loved this book! So much fun and such an awesome magic system. I really hope this continues to be a series because the ending and characters left me wanting more.

Okay, so The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy? If slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers, assassins & healers is your jam (and honestly, whose isn’t?), then YOU NEED TO READ THIS. Imagine if you were forced to team up with the person you literally cannot stand, but oh wait, there's some MAJOR chemistry and neither of you can admit it. Chef's kiss. 🤌

Osric, our brooding assassin, is literally on the brink of death (but also, like, super hot?) and needs the help of Aurienne, a healer from an enemy faction. Obviously, she’s not thrilled about it, because, um, he’s a literal assassin and they’re literally enemies. But when there’s a super creepy, deadly disease going around and a massive lack of funds for a cure, they kinda have to call a truce. Cue tension. And I mean TENSION. Every page is like, "Ugh, I hate you, but also, okay maybe you're kinda hot?" The classic “will they, won’t they” vibes are so strong.

Honestly, it’s the perfect blend of action, romance, and “wait, how did this go from literally wanting to kill each other to... you know?” I couldn’t put it down and am now convinced I, too, am a sucker for enemies-to-lovers tropes (who knew?).

If you’re looking for a spicy read that keeps you guessing (and rooting for the most dysfunctional yet cute couple ever), grab this book. You won’t regret it… but you might get a little frustrated in the best way possible. I’m obsessed with this book in every way possible. LIKE I NEED BOOK 2 now. PLEASE.

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. I cannot believe I got this ARC?!!! As a long-time Dramione girl (and I mean LONG), I have been heavily monitoring the Dramione fanfiction to the traditionally-published pipeline surgence that sparked in 2024. Wow, I am ESCTATIC. THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH! This made my ENTIRE year and I'm incredibly honored AHHHH!!! I dropped EVERYTHING to read this. I am beyond grateful.

Now time for my actual review (LOL). This book made me laugh so so much and I ADORE our characters. The setting? Delivered. The banter? DELIVERED? I have zero critiques truly. The writing style, the chapter titles, and plot was absolutely amazing and iconic! That ending!!!! I needed the next book yesterday. I seriously cannot even articulate how excited I am for it. Brigitte Knightley, you have outdone yourself. This was without a doubt a five star read. THANK YOU SO MUCH AGAIN! Time to go weep in my room about how lucky I am to have recieved this opportunity.

Fantastic give me 14 of them right now!!!!!

First of all the banter and humor in this book was truly—TRULY some of the best I’ve read in my 33 years on this earth!!! I giggled out loud on so many occasions it’s borderline embarrassing. Kicked my feet like a little girl over here. I had the time of my life reading this!!!

Osric!!!! The man that you are. I love you. I LOVE YOU.
Aurriene is the definition of unfazed baddie queen!!

I never wanted this book to end. I want to re-read it immediately. The world building was confusing at first with all the terminology but you catch on quickly and it’s just SO GOOD!! From the different orders to the sassy deofols, this book was an absolute delight from start to finish!

The burn is SLOOOOOOOOOOW but so, so good. The tension is JUST right—this is true “enemies” to lovers so I appreciate that they are not immediately smitten with eachother and that the build was so slow and subtle!! UGH I love them so much!!!!

“You and your brains. You and all your pretty edges. You’re doing it.” EXXXXCUUUUSE MEEEE???

“I’d rather you hate me than not think of me at all.” GAH!

Anyway this book was perfect thank you so much to Netgalley and Berkley for this e-ARC!!

Enemies to lovers is one of my favorite tropes, and this book delivers in spades. We follow Osric Mordaunt, an assaissin searching for a particular healer to save his life. Unfortunately, the only healer with the skills he's looking for belongs to an enemy clan who is too busy trying to save the children from a pox outbreak. Will they be able to work together to save each other?

This story was breathtaking. I loved the long glances, the dialogue, just brilliantly described angst, distrust, lust, and longing. I couldn't put this story down.

I am utterly obsessed with this book.
I LOVED LOVED DMATMOOBIL, honestly my favorite ao3 fanfiction and I JUMPED at the chance to read this.

It’s way different because DUH but it still has the absolute beauty that was the fanfic writing. Brigitte is immediately an auto buy author for me and I’m just so damn stoked. I can’t wait for the next one!

This may be my most disappointing read of the year.

I was genuinely shocked by how much I hated The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy, especially given how much I've enjoyed Knightley’s other works. Unfortunately, this one had numerous issues, some of which stem from the writing itself, while others are just personal pet peeves.

Let’s start with the plot. The central question that kept lingering in my mind was: why should I care about any of this? I understand that the novel draws influence from Knightley’s fanfiction, but I barely know Osric and Aurienne, and never felt any real investment in their story. The characters came across as one-dimensional and, frankly, irritating.

This leads to my second major critique: none of the conflicts felt serious. Aurienne is supposedly morally opposed to murder and disgusted by Osric—but she seems entirely unfazed when, not only does Osric kill people, but she herself does the same. She expresses moral outrage, but her actions don’t align with her supposed beliefs, which makes it hard to take her internal conflict about helping him serious.

Then, there’s the world-building—or lack thereof. The setting feels muddled, somewhere between Victorian, modern, and vaguely British fantasy. I shouldn’t need a glossary just to make sense of the world in a book I’m reading. The lack of context and development left me feeling disoriented.

Now, onto the smaller details that bothered me, which may just be personal quirks. First, why does every sign in this world have missing letters, as if to make some kind of forced pun? Second, can we please stop with the constant references to "clutching pearls"? Third, why does everything seem to be capitalized like a proper noun? And lastly—what made this my least-favorite read of the year (so far, at least)—why, oh why, is there so much focus on bodily functions and feces?

That said, I did like the cover. But sadly, that’s where my praise ends. One star.

I had fun reading this, but I was disappointed when I found out it's going to be a duology. A lot of parts of this book dragged for me, so I think it could easily have been shortened into a standalone.

Aurienne, a healer, and Osric, an assassin, team up to benefit each other despite their immediate mutual hatred. This is an extremely slow burn romance, but it's kind of refreshing when compared to all of the insta-love romances that I've been reading lately. I enjoyed their banter, but it did get old and repetitive after a while.

I would recommend this to anyone looking for a slow burn romance with a lot of humor.

Brigitte Knightley is a brilliant, incorrigible wordsmith. This story is full of the most absurdly delightful turns of phrase, the wittiest banter, and the funniest frolic through a compendium of insults that I have ever read.

After a great deal of foot-kicking, giggling, and entirely too much laughing out loud in public places I have finished The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy and I simply wish it weren't over.

It's unconscionably bright and buoyant for a book about a killer-for-hire and the doctor he's bribed to save him. I loved every second.

My one and only gripe with this book is that there's so many dazzling one liners that it does slow the plot pacing a bit to make room for them. It's not a loss I'll miss much, but I do think that the balance of substance to dialogue could have been improved *slightly*. I do stand by what I said in my live updates though- the Butcher and Blackbird readers who loved that irreverence and wit will devour this book.

4.5 stars rounded up. Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy is going to be a tough act to follow - fully expecting this to be a top read for 2025 despite barely being a month into the year. As I was lucky enough to read an ARC and so must remain spoiler free, I will have to be a little vague when I say there is a chapter in this book that might be the most romantic thing I’ve read…ever. The language. The emotions. The way everything before builds into it so seamlessly. I think I highlighted half of the chapter.

Brigitte Knightley weaves a masterclass of laughs, magic, and intrigue over the course of the novel. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much reading! My favorite humor is a little dark, a lot of snark, and has an edge (this was recently dubbed "northeast humor" by my agent and she's not wrong). It's a tough line to walk to have an assassin cracking jokes and still make him a sympathetic character, but it's perfectly balanced.

Osric is a delight from his first moment on the page. He preens constantly, not that Aurienne is willing to pay him any mind, much to his dismay. He’s the most charming bastard I’ve read in who knows how long (and I suspect he’d take that precisely how I mean it - a grand compliment).

Aurienne is brilliantly competent, with sparking wit and a clever ability to twist words bestowed on her by the author that made her dialogue pop off the page. I loved the slow pulling back of layers with her, and how over the course of the novel, BK reveals that despite their opposite roles of healer and assassin for hire, Aurienne and Osric have more sharp edges in common than not.

What a delightfully perfect blend of magic, world building, and romance! It was just what my heart needed this week--and lucky for all of you, the pre-order is currently 25% off at Barnes and Noble through today (Feb 6th).

I...have so many feelings. SO MANY FEELINGS.

AND QUESTIONS. HOW DARE YOU TOY WITH MY EMOTIONS LIKE THIS, MS. KNIGHTLEY??? (she knows what she did, and when you read this book, you'll know too)

This book is a slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww burn. The slowest of slow. A crock pot might as well be an instant pot at this point. But the (unadulterated) loathing moving to grudging respect to "i mean, i guess you're not the absolute worst" to "oh f*** I think I'm in love but they must NEVER KNOW" is SO DELICIOUS I CAN'T STAND ITTTTTTTTT

GIVE ME THE NEXT INSTALLMENT, OR ELSE (I will sit here crying in the rain)

Unfortunately, this book just wasn’t for me. This book is irreverent to the point of ridiculousness. Pretty much any time anything serious was being discussed, I just couldn’t connect because everything had to just be stuffed full with jokes. And the humor is very hit or miss. A lot of it is very juvenile just usually written with very proper speech. As the book went on, the humor missed more and more, likely because I was just tired of it.

The characters felt pretty one note to me. Everyone feels like a caricature, where the personality traits they do have are cranked up to eleven. I found it hard to connect to either of the main characters. Maybe consequently, I didn’t feel like the romance landed. It’s a slow burn, which I usually love, enemies-to-lovers, which again usually love, but the way they started to notice each other didn’t feel natural to me. Instead, it almost felt like they started to have feelings just because it was a certain number of pages into the book.

Finally, I felt like I was missing pages? I had to look up search through reviews to make sure I wasn’t. The book kind of just ends with no climax and nothing resolved. There’s going to be at least another book in the series, but it makes me think that the books maybe were written as one book and chopped in half, but there wasn’t a natural stopping point, so the ending feels like the end of a chapter, not of a whole book. There is an emotional climax, but it’s really not enough to end a book on.