Unfortunately this one ended up being not for me and i DNF'd around 25%. I struggled getting into this, the world, the magic system and the characters just didn't click for me and I found myself struggling to get through the chapters. I'm going to be honest, this may be the title that really showed me that romantasy just isn't for me. I think that the audience for this is absolutely there, if you're looking for a fantasy that is more heavily focused on the relationship but unfortunately I just don't think that works for me anymore.

The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy was such a fun read. Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the chance to read this book.
I enjoyed this new magical world that was blended with medical knowledge. The characters were fun and Osric's POV made me laugh so many times. This book has it all... political intrigue, humor, mystery, angsty romance, and magic. I definitely recommend this book to any fellow lovers of enemies to romance plot or the Dramoine girlies out there.

DNF @ 10%.

I was very excited for this book as the premise sounded like it could stand on its own, but I could not read the writing style. Too young, too forced, and trying too hard to be humorous.

I loved this! It was so much fun and I really liked the banter betwee the main characters. I also found that their relationship developed naturally and their feelings changed in a way that felt reasonable. There was no insta-love, which I appreciated. The first chapter was also one of the best starts to a book I've read all year!

Banter is back in books! Oh, how I love to see it. The chemistry between the FMC and MMC is truly like no other, the slow burn of the characters from hate to denial of their feelings is so slow but so worth the build.

The world building is a learn as you go, which I enjoy, I don’t care much for books that info dump on the first chapters I enjoy learning about the world as the characters set on their quest, it makes it more enjoyable.

My only true criticism is that the book just ends its almost like they cut a whole book in half to make two books and this is what we are left with just and abrupt end. In other words I need book two.

Solid 4.5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review

This one was not for me, purely because of the writing. I wanted to like it! The story seemed really interesting, but I could not get into it. There was something about the writing that immediately turned me off, I struggled through the first several chapters and didn't really retain any of the story. This might be a me problem, but I wish the author luck!

I can honestly say this book made me laugh out loud. It was refreshing in that way. The story follows two very different but likeable characters who begin reluctantly working together, first in an attempt to bridge the medical and the magical to heal a degenerative disease afflicting one of the main characters, but this slowly evolves into a bigger mystery that includes a dastardly conspiracy and potentially deadly and world changing consequences. The world building is fun - light while still being evocative. Despite having a unique magic system, it doesn't get bogged down in minute details. This makes it a quick read, focused on the characters. The banter is great between the leads. Their relationship evolves naturally and is well-paced. This is definitely a book that I would recommend to Romantasy readers, but I would also say this is a good introduction to the genre. It is approachable, especially for readers of Emily Henry and other contemporary romcom authors. A romance reader will recognize the tropes and story beats, but they'll get to enjoy them in a unique world with characters that really jump off the page.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱WHAT TO EXPECT⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

🔮 Enemies to lovers
🧪 The slowest slow burn known to man
🔮 Snarky, witty banter
🧪 Vulgar jokes
🔮 A cliffhanger

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱PLOT⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

🧪 Osric has contracted an incurable illness and the only person who has a chance at saving him and his powers is Aurienne. Although reluctant to help him at first, she ends up agreeing after some . . . persuading *cough* threatening and *cough* coercing *cough* The two are in different orders with very different moral compasses—he’s an act-first-talk-later assassin and she’s a meticulous healer—so they get into tons of heated arguments while trying to figure out how to cure him. It’s a fun time.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱CHARACTERS⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

🔮 Osric. All my morally gray girlies will love him 🥰 His solution to everything is murder and it’s kinda funny ngl. His favorite hobbies are killing, stealing and committing felonies. Yet despite all this, he’s kind of adorable??? Idk. It makes no sense but he’s a cutie patootie once you get past all the arrogance murder mayhem.

🧪 Aurienne. If there’s anyone I believe can cure cancer, it’s her. She’s EXTREMELY intelligent and ultra-competent. She’s a lil cold and uptight but in the most endearing way possible!!! I love her so much and can’t wait to get a second book all about her hehe

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱WHAT I DISLIKED⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

🔮 At least half of the jokes were sexual and while I don’t mind some crude humor here and there, this was a bit much for me. There was nonstop talk of pubic hair and penises. It got old pretty quick. The non-sexual jokes were hilarious though!

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱WHAT I LIKED⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

🧪 The chapter titles in here are my favorite chapter titles ever. Some of my favorites were chapter 2: Aurienne Wishes Death upon Her New Patient and chapter 6: Osric Wishes to Murder a Child. Interesting titles like these make me more excited to read.

🔮 The author’s wittiness. A lot of the one-liners in the dialogue and internal monologue were so clever. Ngl a bunch of the jokes probably went over my head bc I’m not nearly as clever as this author is. I loved the jokes I could understand though!

🧪 It was so funny how much they genuinely couldn’t stand each other in the beginning lol the enemies phase of this enemies-to-lovers relationship was GIVING. The forced proximity, snarky banter, the insults, the death threats—it was all sooo delicious.

🔮 The slooooooow burn. So slow. So incredibly slow. Brigitte Knightley is the Mariana Zapata of romantasy. We have to wait SO LONG for anything even remotely romantic to happen between them and the anticipation makes everything so much better.

🧪 He threatened to kill her and she laughed in his face bahahaha what a queen

🔮 The caretaking scene. He was being so unusually gentle with her in those moments and it was nice seeing him be soft for once. He was SO worried lol poor dude. He made sure she was eating enough to recover quickly, held on to her to help her move around AND let her sleep on him 🥺

🧪 He stabbed the man who groped her without consent with a fork twenty times 😍 We love a protective assassin!!

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱RECOMMENDATIONS⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

🔮 If you’re looking for another rom-com romantasy with magic and dislike-to-love, check out Go Hex Yourself by Jessica Clare. It’s another silly, goofy time book that doesn’t require much brain power. If you like this, you’ll probably like that (I think).

🧪 I think fans of this will also enjoy The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love by India Holton solely because both authors are so witty. India Holton is the only author I’ve read from whose wit compares to Brigitte Knightley’s. If you appreciate the cleverness with which Brigitte writes, I think you'll appreciate India Holton just as much. This is another cozy fantasy rom-com. It’s nothing too deep, just a fun time. Happy reading! <3

I enjoyed the story, but the ending fell completely flat for me. It felt like a longer book cut off randomly in the middle. I don't feel like the ending helped set up the next book in the series, and while a cliffhanger would create a sense of anticipation, this just felt so banal. I wouldn't look to bring this book into the library until book 2 is released at the very least, because of the unsatisfying end of the book.

This book started off strong, and the author’s eloquent writing style was immediately apparent. The personalities inspired by well-known characters really shone through, making it an enjoyable and creative take. The world-building was engaging, but separating from the inspiration, I found the character development and backstories lacking depth, which made it hard to fully connect with the story.

Still, it’s a fun read filled with quirky details and entertaining banter.

Originally posted on 8/5/25 on Goodreads.

Read July 14-31, 2025. DNF'd 60% through.

I surprised myself because I didn't expect to DNF this, as I greatly enjoyed the author's writing in her fanfic. It was a couple of things that did it in. I read her Dramione fanfic (my first and only because I was told over and over the writing was so good, and it was!) before Rowling really popped off, and now it's hard to keep my mind off <i>*waves hands*</i> all of that while reading.

And yes, I know it's been said up and down this is a NEW work...but it's a new work like a knock-off handbag isn't an <i>exact</i> replica of a designer. We all know what we're doing when we fork over that $30 bucks and breathe in those fake leather chemicals. The marketing leaning heavily into promoting it AS basically knock-off, Dramione-coded work much like THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS was so clearly Reylo fanfic, so that didn't exact do much to persuade me otherwise. I don't think the authors who are being heavily courted to publish this new wave of adapted fanfics should be as vilified as they have been by some, especially when there's plenty of actual corporations giving money to Rowling and benefiting way more from HP than these authors, but it also won't leave my mind while I'm reading. I'd rather spend my energy and focus elsewhere.

But what worked in the fanfic wasn't working here, and a lot of it came down to: if these characters AREN'T Hermione and Draco, then WHO are they? There was something missing from the broad strokes of girl: uptight, smart do-gooder, man: insouciant and morally grey. (Which also...still sounds like Dramione. He's got white slicked back hair. Her biggest physical difference is she's now Black, which was also done when a Black woman played Hermione in the Broadway play and it was "news".) I knew who they were supposed to be within the scenes, but they came off as kind of one-note, and perhaps part of that was because of my next issue:

The plot. It consisted of these two living a bit of their own insulated lives with their orders, meeting up once a month to snipe at each other then fail at an experiment, rinse and repeat. The forward progress was minimal, and while the author clearly put a lot of time and thought into the world-building in the prep stage, it didn't feel like we got to SEE a lot of said world outside of the set dressing. 60% of the way through and this orphan child plague mystery has gotten nowhere, and I think I'm supposed to assume this will eventually be revealed as some engineered bio-weapon (because what targets ONLY orphan children) but...why? Who are the outside players who would do this? Why and how does this plot affect these characters, who, to my knowledge are not orphans nor care about any particular orphan children?

The final straw was my favorite part of the fanfic: the clever writing. There was just TOO MUCH of it! Shocking to hear from me, I know. There were some truly funny lines, and some clever turns of phrase, and plenty of words I was highlighting to see if it was a real word I didn't know or a made-up magical world word. But then every sentence decided it needed to be clever. Every. Dang. Sentence. The story was just drowning in its own cleverness and irreverence. It became cumbersome to read for that exact reason, and I found myself sitting down to read it like it was homework.

So, I wish the author well but this just wasn't for me.

**FTC Disclosure: I received a free arc in exchange for my honest opinion.**

This is an enjoyable entry into the cozy fantasy genre. I found it very funny and entertaining. While I had a lot of fun reading it and would love to recommend it to other readers, the book’s over-reliance on being marketed as a previous dramione fanfic is antithetical to my values. I think this story can absolutely stand on its own, and don’t inherently see anything wrong with the book’s origins, but by relying on JKR’s name despite her anti-trans rhetoric, this book has been done a major disservice.

I didn't enjoy the humor in this one or the plot. It felt like a fun fanfiction for people who are familiar with the characters, but the world was confusing as well, so I felt very disconnected with it as a whole and will not be continuing with the series,

Me LOVE!!!! It was riddled with the humor I was expecting and dying to experience from this author. From the beginning I was hooked by the MMC’s perfect level of arrogance that had you simultaneously rolling your eyes and also kicking your feet and giggling. Also the magic system was ✨chef’s kiss✨

I think there were definitely some things to like about the book, but unfortunately I didn't know it was HP Fanfiction until after I'd already read it, and I don't believe we should be publishing HP fanfiction and continuing to support that transphobe in any way

This book was so fun! The banter was insane between these two, and I thought the slow burn was just enough for me wanting more! The books worldbuilding was very intricate, at times I will admit it was a little hard to follow with all the new vocabulary so I am grateful for the index that's provided at the beginning! Overall, so excited to see this book hit the shelves!

This definitely hit the spot. These two characters were so opposite and hilarious with their banter. Aurienne was very serious and took all of Osric’s sarcasm as truth. So many funny moments and internal dialogue happened due to that.
They were enemies and shouldn’t have been talking or helping each other . She needed money to help with a vaccine and he needed her out of the box cure to fix him.
His internal monologue and horndogness had me rolling. I’m pretty sure he fell first. Though I’m sure he still thinks he’s prettier.
She was so overworked cause she was so smart and talented. They were definitely a fun pair!

Thank you berkleyromance and Erin for this gifted copy!

💥 The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy is a fast-paced, laugh-out-loud rom-com with just the right amount of tension and tenderness. Brigitte Knightley delivers witty banter, irresistible chemistry, and characters you can’t help but root for. A delight from start to finish — I devoured it in one sitting!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Enemies-to-lovers perfection.

This is a story about people who would have been enemies to loves in a different university but are more just... People who seem to vaguely not get along? In this one.

I loved the fanfic this was based on, and was hoping to enjoy this original story based on the fanfiction... and? I'm going to try to revisit it later when the fic isn't so present in my mind because I think it's possible I'll enjoy it more. As it stands now, this was fine- i didn't feel a connection to the characters, but I didn't hate the reading experience and the audio is an A+. I'll absolutely read more things by the author!

3.5 rounded to 4!

This book was… honestly, it was a little hard to get into. But once I did, I was totally hooked. The Draco/Hermione vibes were on point!