“What I liked about my relationship with Charles was how nice, in a surprisingly uncomplicated way.”

Behind the Frenemy Lines was a nice workplace romance, but a few things prevented me from completely enjoying the story.
My main trouble came from the MMC. If I love when the authors give their characters truly different voices, it was a bit too much for me in this case. I would have understood if it had been in the dialogues, but in the text, the very synthetic, sometimes just words without true sentences, prevented me from bonding with this character (even though I am a neurodivergent person who actually has trouble to express correctly when I talk) —and it almost pushed me to DNF.
That being said, I loved that we actually saw the characters work, that what they did had a true importance in the plot, and gave a lot of rhythm. I loved their combativity, how they are both proud but also feel restrained by their obligations. The romance between them feels mostly easy and logical, and conflicts come from other characters/situations. I absolutely adored how Charles acts with Kriya, how he supports her but doesn’t act instead of her. He gives her space, because he knows she’s completely able to deal with the situation, and that’s something we need to see more in romance.

Thank you to the author, Colored Pages PR and Tor Publishing Group | Bramble the access to the eARC on NetGalley. My opinions are my own.

3.5/5

This book was like a breath of fresh air from my normal fantasy books that I read.

In this book, we have our FMC, Kria and our MMC, Charles who basically have always kind of been frenemies. Kria knows what she wants , especially when it comes to a career , so she's very driven and headstrong. Charles has always been like this rule follower and he's been the consistent thorn in Kria's side.

However, when they are forced to work togethe,r they have to basically make it work. due to a situation they end up pretending that they're dating. What happens next is a series of interesting events. I don't want to give anything away but when put in that situation are lines crossed? Do you stay the course that you're on? Does the thorn in your side become a bigger pain?

This is definitely a must read. I found it so enjoyable.

Overall a decent read. I liked both main characters--Charles and Kriya. Arthur is incredibly frustrating, as he is supposed to be. The premise is solid. I just didn't find myself *wanting* to read it. I would pick it up here and there. Read a little bit. Put it down. Read a little bit more. It was just missing something that I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it was the pacing? Just didn't move as quickly?

Either way, not wholly memorable but not wholly awful.

Behind Frenemy Lines follows Kriya and Charles, two long-time rivals who are forced to share an office after Kriya switches law firms. As they spend more time together, their assumptions about each other slowly unravel and what starts as snarky banter gradually turns into something much sweeter.

This was such a cute romance! I loved both Kriya and Charles, but Charles especially won me over with his endearing and charming bumbling inner monologue. It’s definitely a slow burn, with a focus on them building a real friendship before acknowledging their feelings, and I really enjoyed watching that progression.

Even though the romance is lighthearted and full of those feet-kicking cute moments, the book also tackles some heavier themes like workplace harassment and power dynamics. One thing I really appreciated was how confident both characters were in who they were. While they both grow over the course of the story, they start off as fully realized, capable people, which made their dynamic even more satisfying to read.

This workplace co-worker fake dating to more dual POV romance just wasn't for me. I found it slow, lacked chemistry between the main characters and that there was more focus on the workplace harassment plot than the actual romance. Okay on audio but not one I'll remember or recommend even though it had a FAB cover! Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital and audio copy in exchange for my honest feedback.

3.5/5
TW: several mentions of sexual harassment, workplace harassment

I always love seeing unique representations of Asian culture, and this book was chock full of those. We had an Indian female MC, with some other characters hailing from Hong Kong and Malaysia. I loved seeing all the mentions and descriptions of their customs, culture and food.

When it comes to the book itself, I felt it was lesser focused on the romance and more on the life of Kriya as a lawyer. It definitely took me some time to get used to all the lawyer speak and terminology, but once I did it was smooth sailing. My only other grievance was how script-like and plain Charles' (the male MC) chapters felt. It occasionally would make the plot lose its momentum and felt jarring, although I'm aware the author likely made it intentional to show how practical and to the point Charles is as a character.

Overall though, it was a pleasant read and I enjoyed seeing this interracial relationship between two incredibly smart and badass main characters. I'd be interested to see what else Zen Cho comes up with!

This is the truest modern romance—frenemies to lovers, built on tension, truth, and the slow, intentional act of discovering love. A story that asks: What if resistance is the first step toward connection?”

One of the most extraordinary things about reading is how it offers instant intimacy: the chance to meet anyone, anywhere, anywhen—and understand them. Stories let us enter lives radically different from our own, and still recognize the shared desires, drives, fears, and hopes that make us human. That’s why representation in storytelling isn’t just a checkbox—it’s a bridge. It invites us into someone else’s lived experience and shows us that emotional truth isn’t bound by identity, but shaped by it—offering space to recognize the parts of ourselves we hadn’t named yet, while celebrating what makes us beautifully unique.

And that’s why Behind Frenemy Lines deserves both applause and scrutiny. Zen Cho sets out to tell a story about workplace power dynamics, emotional constraint, cultural identity, and romantic tension—all filtered through the overlapping worlds of law and love.

Kriya Rajasekar is ambitious, magnetic, and professionally cornered. After an inappropriate advance from her mentor-boss at a conference, she invents a fictional boyfriend to deflect attention—only to have her rival, Charles Goh, mistakenly assigned that role in a well-meaning but misguided intervention. What begins as a defensive charade becomes a slow-burning entanglement, sharpened by proximity and softened by quiet revelation.

Charles isn’t your typical romantic lead. He narrates his chapters like a deposition—clipped, formal, emotionally distant. In early scenes, his POV reads like redacted testimony: precise, rigid, almost like a screenplay for a courtroom drama. Cho’s stylistic choice mirrors his inner restrictions brilliantly, though it comes at a cost. For readers like me—who view dialogue as the heart’s translator—it can feel like a wall. Clever, yes. But emotionally withheld to the point of disconnection.

Kriya, by contrast, commands the page with vitality and clarity. Her narration draws you in like a moth to flame, and it’s through her lens that Charles’s carefully curated persona begins to soften. Their wonderfully friction-fraught relationship chips away at his walls—not in melodrama, but through humor, awkward gestures, and quiet empathy. Honestly, he’s the most Darcy-esque character I’ve read in years: all fumbles, blushes, and lawyerly deflections. And while his initial stiffness frustrated me, the gradual emergence of his emotional depth eventually earned my investment.

This novel tackles heavy themes: sexual harassment, cultural flattening, and the pressure to package identity as palatable. And it does so within a narrative that’s bold, sometimes uneven, and quietly experimental—but ultimately worth wrestling with.

I’m so glad I was gifted this book—if not, I might’ve made the mistake of putting it back on the shelf. The story’s emotional power reveals itself through Kriya’s vibrant entrance and her meet-cute with Charles on the steps of the wrong office building.

My Best Advice: Stick with Charles, and you’ll discover—as Kriya and I did—something unexpected behind the legalese. In this book, the romance isn’t built on flirtation, but on resilience. And once again, that age-old refrain proves itself: we only begin to truly know someone when we set down our assumptions and simply see.

This one falls squarely into the just okay category for me.

It’s a workplace rivals-to-lovers rom-com with a clever setup, but unfortunately, the execution didn’t fully deliver. The banter was fine, the tension was mild, and while the enemies-to-lovers dynamic was there, it never quite caught fire. Nothing stood out as particularly bad, but nothing stood out as particularly great either.

I didn’t dislike reading it, but I also didn’t find myself rushing back to it. It’s one of those books that you finish and immediately move on from. If you’re looking for a light, easy rom-com with low stakes and familiar tropes, this might scratch that itch. But if you want something with more spark or originality, you might want to look elsewhere.

I enjoyed Behind Frenemy Lines much more than The Friend Zone Experiment I do enjoy books around lawyers or a workplace romance, and it also had fake dating, another trope I enjoy. Charles was not the most attractive male main character to me, but he did eventually grow on me.

I love how awkward Charles is! I love that they somewhat had a few years' worth of embarrassing coincidental meets. Really, retrospectively, this is meet cute 🤣

I love that these two really got each other's backs and have got really good group of friends pushing them along to take a chance at life & at love.

This was just such wonderfully easy story to read. I can totally sit back and relax knowing that I'm in good hands. Oh and I like seeing someone from her earlier novel making an appearance here!

This book was cute. It was slower than I expected but the story built through the book was so good it kept my attention. It was a quick rom com work place story that also touched on workplace misconducts.

Thank you Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group | Bramble for the free e-arc. My opinions are being left voluntarily. I really enjoyed this enemies to lovers vibes.i loved the banter the tension was also so very present. I really loved the family and side stories with this book. I enjoyed the representation.

Suggest giving it a try

4.5/5☆

Rivals to lovers let's go! Behind Frenemy Lines focuses in on the ways we cannot see our rivals clearly and the ways in which we do. Sometimes it just takes someone to see who we are. Often times our rivals are the ones who are looking at us, examining us, the most. Yet at the same time, we often have misconceptions about these rivals. We can't see the miscommunications or the ways in which they might not have meant to be our rival at all. Behind Frenemy Lines explores the rivals while also exploring issues of family.

💼 He’s all rules.
💥 She’s all risk.

♥️| Fake Dating
♥️| Forced Proximity
♥️| Slow Burn Chemistry

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️ spice is fade to black but the build up is really good!

Who doesn’t love a rivals to lovers story?! This book is a rivals to lovers except they are rival lawyers who during into colleagues because our FMC changes firms to follow her boss. The FMC meets the MMC early in her career when she’s looking for an internship and she ends up falling on the stairs infront of him and he’s very unhelpful and throughout 15 years she runs into him several times and something unfortunate always ends up happening so she refers to him as her bad luck charm.
There is also fake dating in this book between the two MCs which had me screaming! This book is a slow burn and I loved watching the two come together! The banter between the two was next level and I also adored the tension! The spice in this book is fade to black but the build up is really well done! If you love a workplace romance, fake dating, meddling family and friends and an MMC with a sad background story you’re going to enjoy Behind Frenemy Lines!

A cute premise - I love an enemies to lovers story. But this didn't work for me - it felt like the author was trying to do too much, and the plot felt overcrowded. I think there are a lot of elements that could have made a good story here. I also strongly dislike using sexual harassment as a plot device.

3.5 ⭐️ | Behind Frenemy Lines was such a cute & resonating read. I loved the diversity of the characters & they were very easy to love. With underlying tropes of fake dating and frenemies to lovers, it was an overall enjoyable read.

Kriya & Charles are forced to share an office when she embarks on a new career journey & of course, Charles is her work nemesis. In true fate fashion, they slowly blossom a wonderful friendship that leads to more!

It was great to read about characters with such diverse backgrounds. In addition to ethnicity, Kriya is a lawyer and navigating her way through a male dominated workplace & its challenges. Recommend for fans of slow burn work romance stories with satisfying endings & the tropes listed above. Thank you Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for this advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own.

Publication 🗓️ : 07.01.25

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group/Bramble and Net Galley for providing me with a copy of this title to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
I love a good enemies to lovers romance. Add in a fake dating situation and I should have been sold. The blurb for this one made it sound like it would fit this bill perfectly. Unfortunately, it missed the mark for me.
I think the writing style is what initially threw off the pacing of this book for me. I love a dual POV romance because you really get to see what is on the mind of the FMC and the MMC. I enjoyed Kriya's POV enough. I could see how she was relatable. But Charles's POV was totally off for me. At first, I thought maybe the author was portraying him as someone on the spectrum. I hadn't remembered reading that in the blurb, but thought maybe I missed it. But I didn't from what I could tell in the story. It was never mentioned but his POV was full of fragmented sentences. Like we were just hearing things that were maybe in his head. I did understand he was being portrayed as socially awkward, but It was hard for me to read and definitely threw off the cadence of the story.
If I could have gotten past the MMCs POV and how it was written, I could not get past all the law speak and jargon. There was so much of the work, the characters never had any time for chemistry. So when they got together I just didn't feel their pull to each other at all. And there was no build up. They went from enemies to sleeping together so quickly. And it wasn't hate sex, it was just them getting together. It did not work for me at all.
Given the blurb, I also thought there would be more romance and spice. This book really had neither.
I did like the cultural references and learned a bit about both the main characters's backgrounds during the story.
Overall, I would not classify this story as a romance at all. It was more a story about a woman learning to stand up for herself and becoming more independent and confident with who she is. It's also about a woman who stands up against sexual harassment in the workplace. For me this one missed the mark and I feel like the blurb needs to be reworked to show it really is about the workplace and the misogyny that exists there. While this story wasn't for me, I'm sure others will find it pleasurable to read.

3/5 stars
1/5 spice (fade to black)

Tropes:
Workplace romance
Hate to love
Lawyers MCs
Forced proximity
Fake dating
Multicultural
He falls first
Plus size heroine
Socially awkward MMC
Slow burn
Dual POV

I liked this book and enjoy parts of the story but had a hard time with the writing style of the author. I could definitely see how that the author wanted to showcase the differences between Charles and Kriya. Although it was successful in portraying Charles' analytical mind and social awkwardness it was not my favorite.

I was invested in Kriya's journey and felt like that was more enjoyable than the slow burn romance. This was also a fade to black romance, which is great when you are invested in the romance. I was happy with how things were resolved in the end but would've liked to see them as a couple for longer.

Overall, this was an okay read for me, good for the moment but I'm not sure if I'll read more from this author. I might try the audiobooks if I do. The cultural representation and self journey of Kriya was worth the read but I wouldn't recommend this as an enemies to lovers. It's more like a dislike to lovers due to miscommunication (which I know a lot of people struggle with).

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan for the ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own and offered voluntarily.

The premise of this story had me so intrigued but unfortunately the writing style didn’t work for me. The MMC has a habit of speaking in fragments which made his chapters feel very disjointed and broke up my reading flow. He will leave off the first word of his sentences for some reason.

Here's an example: "Throat felt tight. Felt like I'd been running all my life and looked up to find myself in the same bloody place. No progress, no possibility of change. Just me doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different outcome each time. Feeling was familiar. Get it whenever I have to deal with Ba"

The characters themselves are interesting and it seems like this book is going to talk about some important topics but the writing style was really not for me so I had to put it down. If you're looking for an enemies to lovers, workplace romance this could be the one for you!