Having previously read and loved Olivie Blakes books there was the fear it would not live up to my expectations.
Well it exceeded all expectations!

A lovely Romeo and Juliet retelling with feuding families and just enough suspense to keep you turning the page.

Thank you so much Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for sending me an ARC of One For My Enemy by Olivie Blake.

I enjoyed Atlas Six when I read it a few years ago but never felt drawn to pick up the sequel. I know that people ADORE her writing so I wanted to try it out again.

I thought a Romeo and Juliet inspired book would be perfect for me. But alas...this book just wasn't for me.

I finally managed to settle down to read for a little bit this past week, so I wanted to share my thoughts on One For My Enemy. I’m honestly surprised I haven’t heard more about this book, especially since Olivie Blake’s other novels, The Atlas Six series have been selling like hotcakes (what even are hotcakes? Why is this a thing?) Admittedly, I couldn’t quite bring myself to love The Atlas Six and I gave up on the series at the end of book two, so I wasn’t 100% sure on One For My Enemy. The synopsis swung it for me in the end though, since it sounded so darn good I couldn’t pass it up. Thanks so much to Tor for the Netgalley approval!

The novel started out really strong. There’s a glorious Romeo and Juliet thread to the story, reinforced by quotations from the play at the start of new chapters. There’s also a bit of Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov in there (sorry, I had to read it for uni once and I’ll never forget it). The premise of the novel was fascinating to me too- magic and star-crossed love and betrayals and vengeance? Yes please! It was interesting to see how the characters all worked against each other, and how the lack of trust amongst them led to so many problems. There were times where I just wanted to shake one of them and tell them to stop hiding secrets and share for goodness sake, but unlike some novels where the miscommunication is annoying and questionable, it made a lot of sense here. The writing is, as usual, beautiful. There’s some stunning descriptions packed in here, and they always make the world Blake writes about feel so realistic and wonderful, even while everything is falling apart and going to hell in a handbasket.

I will also say that the character development in One For My Enemy was a vast improvement for me from previous books I’ve read by the same author. While I still think there was room for the main characters to be fleshed out more, they are distinctly different from each other and it was always clear whose perspective you were reading. Sasha was probably my favourite, since she was so sweet and constantly trying to do good, and I thought it was a nice refreshment from the backstabbing and manipulation the other characters all seemed to employ with ease. That’s not to say she was perfect, and she definitely made mistakes, but it seemed like her heart was in the right place and I liked her.

The romance was a bit rushed for me, though. As much as I adore a good star-crossed romance full of angst and longing glances, it felt like the reader didn’t get enough of an insight into what was happening. The novel moves quickly, which can be a blessing at times, but the problem is that it never spent enough time on the characters falling in love with one another. I get that there’s a lot of tension and stress and stuff, which makes people behave differently, but it was a bit weird to hear characters saying those three words to one another after only a couple of chapters and one or two scenes where they almost hook up. Part of it is also that some of the time passes off-page (off-screen, whatever you want to say) so maybe it isn’t quite as rushed as it felt, but it didn’t quite sell it to me either way. The rushed timeline also causes problems when the plot becomes very… convoluted. This was one of the things that didn’t gel with me with The Atlas Paradox, and I had hoped that a story in a less academic setting might mean some of the complexity and explanation stuff were stripped back, and for about 90% of the book, that was true. But right towards the end, the author propels the reader through twist after twist, secret after secret, and it overloaded the story for me. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it, but it definitely is something that might talk me out of trying another of Olivie Blake’s books in the near-future.

Overall, I'm giving this book 3 1/2 stars. It started out very strong and I loved the premise of the story. The characters were well-written and had a lot of depth to them, which I appreciated, and the descriptions and prose were beautiful. However, I do think the plot raced over the romances in a way that left me wanting more and feeling like it was a bit too sudden, and the plot got convoluted towards the end in a way that made it hard to follow.

One For My Enemy tries to rewrite Romeo and Juliet but seems confused by who the R&J of the story actual are. I love Olivie Blake's writing style, it's smooth and easily digestable but I think this novel tries to be much too complex than it needs to be - too many plot lines, not enough pages so it felt messy. The characters are split between the two families, there are ... three true love matches (three that I can remember!) between these two families and they are all tragic in their own ways. I also enjoyed the Russian influence to the characters, including the use of Baba Yaga in a modern setting which I can't recall seeing before.

In my opinion, the first 50% of the novel is far superior to the second half. It sets the scene well and introduces you to the characters and their complex family structures - the magic element was an interesting addition and I was enjoying the relationship between Lev and Sasha, they're flirting was cute.

As soon as characters started dying but being brought back to life (yes ... characters plural) I quickly lost interest. It was the most annoying aspect of this book for me and I found it boring when it continued to happen. The ending tried to be tragic but in reality I was relieved it was over!

Overall, enjoyable but not going down as a favourite.

4.5

One thing that Blake never fails to do is make me fall in love with characters that I would never normally love. The way she writes her characters with such depth and detail is truly astounding. All of them are nuanced and vibrant in ways that make them feel so impossibly real. I think if you asked me to choose a favourite character from this book I would struggle greatly. And it’s not just the main cast, but also the side characters. You can see the amount of thought and attention to detail that goes into them even if they only appear for a chapter or two (or as in this book, scenes).

The story itself was fantastic. I know sometimes one can sit and think “how many more Romeo and Juliet retellings can there be?” But this was reimagined in such a way that Blake truly made the story her own and you totally forget that it is inspired by something else.

Blake’s prose is truly beautiful. The poetry within the pages of this book was so astounding, I could feel my heart clenching, I could feel the words resonating writhing my bones, I could have bottled Blake’s words and gotten drunk from them.

Blake never fails to perform and this is just another stellar example of her talent and prowess. She will always be one of those authors where I will read anything she writes no matter the genre/setting/plot because I know that it will be ~400 pages of pure bliss and escapism.

I truly enjoyed this book so so much.

A very big thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc!!

Finally, a decent Romeo and Juliet retelling (however loose) for me. and I'm glad that the writing style was easy to read.

the long-standing rivalry between the Antonovas matriarch & the Ferodov patriarch finally progressed, after years in the cold war state. the conflicts were whirlwind of man's greed, forbidden feelings, and dysfunctional families. I love the pace at the beginning but after 40 percent-ish it beginning to felt too slow, and at the end I didn't feel any emotions about whatever happened. But some part was fun (not in the happy way but more like amusing). I like Lev's personality the most. I think there's not enough description about the Ferodovs magic, they just like a family doing illegal bussiness, not witches.

Ok I don't know what I'm talking about so I'll stop here. 3,75⭐️ for me

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.