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A review by neatollama
The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I'm a sucker for good enemies-to-lovers slow burn with lots of banter. Also, we stan a woman in STEM who meets a morally grey chaos goblin and instead of thinking " I can fix him," looks at them with disgust and says "let them rot." I absolutely loved this book and I'm going to need book 2 ASAP
Set somewhere in the late 19th century in an AU of the United Kingdom where the country is split into 10 different kingdoms. Within the 10 kingdoms are 8 Orders (Guilds) specializing in a specific skill set (healing, engineering, assassination, etc). An Assassin and a Healer are forced to work together to solve not only his illness but the mysterious reoccurrence of a previously long-forgotten Pox, they find themselves ardently denying their attraction, which only fuels the tension between them.
Incredibly smart and full of very British dry humor. Honestly, this is one of the only books I've read to make me laugh out loud in a long time. While the humor is very tongue-in-cheek, it also has a lot of crude jokes in it, which might be off-putting for some (especially ch 5)
If you're familiar with Bridgette's fanfiction, you know how she goes above and beyond when doing research for her stories, and this was no exception. I don't even want to know the number of hours she put in doing research on things from Old English to complicated medical terminology.
While ambitious, the world-building was done quite well for a debut novel. Besides the glossary in the beginning, and the basic info on the different Orders (guilds) and a pronunciation guide in the back, most of what we learn about the world and the characters we learn as we go, and are added in as a natural part of the story. Which, honestly, I prefer since I HATE huge info dumps.
The magic system is interesting, love that it's mixing magic with actual science, where it is just a part of the human body similar to the nervous system. Also loved the deofol, which are familiars that are a physical manifestation of a person's magic.
The characters are well thought out, and I liked that you slowly learn more about the main characters as they learn more about each other. However, I wish we got to learn more about Aurienne and her hinted at dark past (hopefully we do in the 2nd book.) Banter was top tier. I genuinely enjoyed the main character's interactions, and it was so entertaining to watch Osric fall first and fall harder but be in denial about it. The way we see them go from instant hatred to begrudgingly mutual respect to love was amazing. Plus the YEARNING?! Ugh, be still my heart.
Also, I've seen people complain about the "random capital letters in sentences". I was curious about it and did a little Googling and found out it's a stylistic choice to show emphasis. To either show that the capitalized word refers to a specific concept, rather than the real meaning of the word, or so that the reader can more dynamically and accurately hear the dialogue. You can see other examples of this in Terry Pratchett's work and even in Winnie the Pooh! So definitely not random but I can understand why some people wouldn't like it.
This is just me being petty, but to everyone complaining about the "made-up nonsense words," if you can learn how to say the names of the dragons in Fourth Wing, you can pronounce deofol and seith. 😒
Set somewhere in the late 19th century in an AU of the United Kingdom where the country is split into 10 different kingdoms. Within the 10 kingdoms are 8 Orders (Guilds) specializing in a specific skill set (healing, engineering, assassination, etc). An Assassin and a Healer are forced to work together to solve not only his illness but the mysterious reoccurrence of a previously long-forgotten Pox, they find themselves ardently denying their attraction, which only fuels the tension between them.
Incredibly smart and full of very British dry humor. Honestly, this is one of the only books I've read to make me laugh out loud in a long time. While the humor is very tongue-in-cheek, it also has a lot of crude jokes in it, which might be off-putting for some (especially ch 5)
If you're familiar with Bridgette's fanfiction, you know how she goes above and beyond when doing research for her stories, and this was no exception. I don't even want to know the number of hours she put in doing research on things from Old English to complicated medical terminology.
While ambitious, the world-building was done quite well for a debut novel. Besides the glossary in the beginning, and the basic info on the different Orders (guilds) and a pronunciation guide in the back, most of what we learn about the world and the characters we learn as we go, and are added in as a natural part of the story. Which, honestly, I prefer since I HATE huge info dumps.
The magic system is interesting, love that it's mixing magic with actual science, where it is just a part of the human body similar to the nervous system. Also loved the deofol, which are familiars that are a physical manifestation of a person's magic.
The characters are well thought out, and I liked that you slowly learn more about the main characters as they learn more about each other. However, I wish we got to learn more about Aurienne and her hinted at dark past (hopefully we do in the 2nd book.) Banter was top tier. I genuinely enjoyed the main character's interactions, and it was so entertaining to watch Osric fall first and fall harder but be in denial about it. The way we see them go from instant hatred to begrudgingly mutual respect to love was amazing. Plus the YEARNING?! Ugh, be still my heart.
Also, I've seen people complain about the "random capital letters in sentences". I was curious about it and did a little Googling and found out it's a stylistic choice to show emphasis. To either show that the capitalized word refers to a specific concept, rather than the real meaning of the word, or so that the reader can more dynamically and accurately hear the dialogue. You can see other examples of this in Terry Pratchett's work and even in Winnie the Pooh! So definitely not random but I can understand why some people wouldn't like it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Murder
Moderate: Sexual content