I love Blake’s writing and this was no different- an amazing world filled with fantastic and captivating characters. While the story was familiar it was told in a new way and completely awesome. Definitely recommend

Thank-you to NetGalleyUK and Pan Macmillan for an eARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

I am broken. I don't wish to be overly dramatic, but I genuinely feel like this must be how the first audiences of Romeo and Juliet felt. It's just utterly tragic and completely devastating. I also can't get over how well she writes the feeling of falling hopelessly, completely, disastrously in love. It's not about the ... ahem ... romantic scenes. It's all the build up to it. It's the completely overwhelming inevitability of the thing.

"One for my enemy" is a vaguely R&J-esque tale of two crime families with historic romantic entanglement and a business stalemate and the weeks and months that happen after the stalemate is broken. It's not a re-telling of Shakespeare, but I will continue to use the comparison that others have made just because I can't think of anything else that would prepare you for the real tragedy of this. And I mean tragedy in the old sense. Not just "it's a sad story" but that sort of inevitability and people having fatal flaws and you covering your mouth with your hand and going nononononono it can't be.

I'm going to need some time to recover from this one.

I greatly enjoyed Blake's previous novel, the extraordinary Alone With You in the Ether. I struggled initially to get into this, described as "a captivating fantasy story of ambition, sacrifice and the enduring power of family legacies."

The Antonova sisters are beautiful, cunning and ruthless, and their mother – known only as Baba Yaga – is the elusive supplier of premium intoxicants. Their adversaries, the influential Fedorov brothers, serve their crime boss father. Named Koschei the Deathless, his enterprise dominates the shadows of magical Manhattan.

For twelve years, the families have maintained a fraught stalemate. Then everything is thrown into disarray. Bad blood carries them to the brink of disaster, even as fate draws together a brother and sister from either side. Yet the siblings still struggle for power, and internal conflicts could destroy each family from within. That is, if the enmity between empires doesn’t destroy both sides first.

It's a different retelling of Romeo and Juliet, with Blake's characteristic perception and understanding of complex relationships.

I haven’t read a fantasy novel in a long time and when *THAT* happened, I was like yep this is why I don’t read fantasy anymore! But the drama that unfolded - jeez! I couldn’t put it down.

I’m a lover of Romeo and Juliet so the parallels to that were just *chef’s kiss.* We are spoiled with more than one epic love story, though.

As with all Olivie Blake books, I was left worried that there was something I wasn’t getting?! And had to go back and reread bits a few times 😅 But still, I loved it - a perfectly tragic romance.

Unfortunately this review is not for the book but to the publisher, I really wanted to read this, and I’ll probably still buy a copy when I can. But this formatting was atrocious and rendered this arc unreadable

Two rival families fight for wealth in power in this witchy loose retelling of Romeo and Juliet. As always Olivie Blake’s writing style is so poetic and beautiful timed. For me there were parts of the story where the timing didn’t feel quite right, some parts seemed longer than it needed to be, but all in all this is exactly what you would expect from this author. If you liked The Atlas Six then this is definitely one for you.

DNF Wanted so much to like this but had ti stop at 70%. It started well but the World building fell of a cliff and pretty quickly became a standard “girls so beautiful men are bewitched into braindeadness” story

I'm always a sucker for a Romeo and Juliet retelling, especially if it has a fantasy element. I've loved Olivie Blake's other books and was very excited for this one.

The first quarter of the book had me HOOKED. I was so invested in the relationships between the characters and their fates and could not put it down. Sasha and Lev felt authentic and I loved their development and I was particularly excited when the chapters moved back to their narratives.

After the first quarter, the book started to get a bit convoluted. The witch element did not feel well fleshed out; the drug dealing seemed like a small side story when it was originally set out as something much more crucial; the miscommunication between who was dead or alive or which side they were on got very murky and dissolved a lot of the tension that the first part of the novel had crafted so well. Sometimes I felt like the dialogue was so poetically written that it verged on irrelevant to the actual book and I found myself skimming repetitive paragraphs about how beautiful and cruel Marya was and how she was the most powerful person in the world.

Overall, it was a new twist on Romeo and Juliet and with the plot and prose a bit tightened up, I could have reread this over and over again. (Side note to for the eARCs - the layout of this on a Kindle was horrendous to read! It is definitely more suited for a physical copy).

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

“At best, Dimitri Fedorov was Marya Antonova’s greatest weakness. At worst, she was his.”

This was honestly so much better than I expected when I picked it up. When I saw that it was a Romeo and Juliet retelling I was expecting the same old thing, but this version added an interesting take on the classic and I really enjoyed it. Its basically the witch mafia, family rivalry, forbidden love, pain, magic, drama, twists, all that goodness.

The things these characters went through together had me shouting at the page while simultaneously cheering them on. I loved Masha, Dima, Sasha and Lev and I support all their rights (and wrongs). Kind of wish we got to see a bit more of Baba Yaga’s other daughters and maybe a little more actual magic, but there was already so much going on anyway that I don’t mind too much.

My review isn’t for the book itself, it’s for the format it is in. I only read on my kindle as it’s better for the eyes rather than on the phone app, this format is completely unreadable on kindle. Layout is all over the place, nothing is set out properly so only read a few pages and gave up!

I am not going to lie. I went into this blindly. I hadn't even read the blurb before I started to read this book, and I'm glad I did because it was good.

I got the vibe that it was a retelling, but it wasn't until a little into the book that I figured it was Romeo and Juilet.

I love Romeo and Juilet incredible amounts, and I feel like Olivie Blake did some justice to it and didn't butcher it.

It was beautiful and haunting all at the same time, and boy, does she know how to write.

(Thank you to Netgalley and Tor for an eARC in exchange for an honest review)

This was a really creative imagining of the classic Romeo and Juliet tale with beautiful writing and a really cool magic system and world-building. However, it all was a little confusing.

I feel like the magic could have been explained a bit better and that too many plot points were dragged out longer than necessary. There were a lot of things that happened without any real explanation why and I ended up not being too invested in the plot and the rivalry between the families. There is a lot of focus on the romances in this book so that could be why the plot is a bit underdeveloped but even the romances felt a little forced and pushed onto the reader.

As for the characters, the main ones were developed quite well but there are a lot of side characters who get no depth or development at all. I kept forgetting that Masha and Sasha weren’t the only Antonova sisters and that they were 5 others as we only get to see them a couple of times. this was quite disappointing as they have really cool magical powers that I wished were explored more.

I really wanted to love this book but I found myself having to push through chapter after chapter.

Delighted to receive my first arc of Olivie Blake’s ‘One for my enemy’ with thanks to Pan Macmillan.
Having read The Atlas Six and The Altas Paradox I was very keen to read more of Olivie's writing. I was completely drawn in by the synopsis. Romeo and Juliet, witch style?
Yes please!
The book is action packed and flows really well, I found myself fully immersed in the main characters story and unable to put it down.
The illustrations are beautiful, and the story of Marya and Dimitri is tragic and heartbreaking. I loved the sisters and their powers/abilities and would have loved to have read more about them within the story.
Overall a great book, I look forward to reading more of Olivie Blake’s work.

“Sometimes my eyes open and I know, somewhere in my bones, that I have formed myself to the shape of waking up beside you.”

UNSURPRISING PUBLIC ANNOUNCMENT: I am forever WEAK for Romeo and Juliet retellings!

'One for My Enemy' is about two rival witch families, the Antonovas and the Federovs, with a life long feud battling to be the dominant name and power in New York City - it is a beautiful amalgamation between Shakespearean retelling and the twist on the known Russian folklore of Baba Yaga and Koschei the Deathless and it is STUNNING.

I have read a few books by Olivie Blake now and I can say without a doubt her prose is just beautiful and she has such a way of weaving such magical stories and this one was just that, magical and heart-breaking.

Like all Blake books though I always feel slightly stupid? Like, its a little too clever for me...but that never takes away from my enjoyment of the read! Sometimes, I actually feel like I've achieved some sort of new worldly understanding (I'm looking at you atlas six)

Overall, I really enjoyed this one - giving it a 3.5 stars! The only reason it wasn't a 4 was due to the repetitive nature of the book (I felt like it went in circles a lot) which I found towards the end I was rolling my eyes at slightly.

However, I will always happily read any book by this author! Thanks so much to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

There's things I liked about this book and things I didn't. I'm not a huge Shakespeare lover but I thought the way the book was written into acts was interesting. I also liked Lev as a character, along with Sasha. I enjoyed reading their interactions, even though it was a little insta-love. The rest of the characters; I didn't really care about. I didn't understand why they were doing the things they were doing, especially at the end. The plot felt a bit messy to me. It took me a while to get into and I got bored at points. But I did think the prose was pretty.

A different take on Romeo and Juliett but with witches and magic. The plot of this sounded good but I'm not sure how I feel about how it was executed

Another book of Blake's I've read where the premise sounded amazing, a Romeo and Juliet retelling with magic? I was immediately excited but similar to The Atlas Six I was left a little disappointed with the execution.

Although I liked a few of the characters I was not particularly routing for anyone, especially with deaths and resurrections left right and centre. There was no plot other than revenge because of a death and although her writing is always poetic and quotable it just didn't grip me enough and I was just waiting for it to be over and to get to the ending but no in the excited what's going to happen kind of way.

Note to formatting: was all over the place, i's and f's missing in words interrupting the flow and causing pauses to figure out what was written.

If it's a Romeo and Juilet retelling, you can bet I'm going to read it. Sadly, despite the premise sounding really good, I just wasn't that invested in the story. The insta love was too much for me, which is a real shame because I really wanted to love this.

A loose Romeo & Juliet reimagining with two rival witch families. As expected the writing is great but the story & characters I just did not care for. The instalove was just far too unbelievable

Romeo and Juliet, but dark, yes, please. Also, witches thrown in just to make my witchy heart sing of course. I loved this one and couldn;t put it down. The writing was beautiful and so descriptive, the tension was so on point as well. I have enjoyed some of Blake's other works, but this was the best for me. Really recommend and cannot wait to get myself a hardcopy.