the ask@AAR: And the best enemies to lovers romance is…?
Recently, seeking joy, I re-read The Hating Game which made me, well, happy. Josh and Lucy’s battle for superiority is gleeful and witty and their love story outstanding. (That kiss in the elevator gets me every time.) Enemies to lovers is one of my favorite tropes–I like it much better than friends to lovers which I usually find a bit bland.
Luckily romance is full of surpassing such stories. The best series I read last year was Holly Black’s The Folk of the Air in which the leads, Jude and Cardan, begin the story as enemies to the death. (Really, Cardan almost kills Jude in the first few chapters of The Cruel Prince (Book #1). By the series’ end, their love is so deep and strong and satisfying that… look, just read the books!
In fact, when I look at my DIK and high B reviews, more of them are enemies to lovers tales than any other trope. I adore Jackie Ashenden’s Having Her, Courtney Milan’s Unlocked, Any Man of Mine by Rachel Gibson, and Bec McMaster’s Dukes are Forever. I really could go on and on.
How ’bout you? What are your favorite enemies to lovers stories? Is it a trope you love?
@Dabney: I’m still having trouble upvoting any comment. If the comment shows a zero count, I can upvote. But if I try to vote for a comment that already has one (or more) votes, I get the message, “You have already voted for this comment,” although I haven’t. Also, I’m not sure if I’m seeing the correct numbers for the votes, but for every comment here, I’m seeing only one or zero votes (with the exception of one comment that shows two votes).
The site has been having all sorts of problems due to a php update. Hopefully these issues will resolve.
Same.
So many forgotten favorites mentioned here- thanks for reminding me! (digging through ebook library….)
I really dislike this theme when the “enemies” part depends on temper tantrums and infantile misunderstandings. However, when there are real obstacles to overcome, as in some of Stella Riley’s Roundheads and Cavaliers books (A Splendid Defiance, Garland of Straw), I love it. Another great example is Meredith Duran’s At Your Pleasure, set in 1715, when the Hanovers are taking over from the Stuarts.
I agree with you that this trope can be easier in historicals when there are external forces making the couple enemies. I also like Duran’s At your Pleasure.
Jo Beverly’s medievals: Lord of Midnight and Dark Champion are special favorites of mine with this trope.
I must say At Your Pleasure is not my favorite of Duran’s books. I find the heroine, Nora, to be confoundingly short-sighted about her brother. And while I’m not usually bothered by lack of consent, as we define it today, in historical romance, I find the wedding and wedding night in that book off-putting.
Agree, agree agree on Nora! Everyone loved her when the book came out but all I could think was she willing to risk getting everyone in the place blown up because of her attachment to her idiot brother.
I had so many problems with At Your Pleasure. I liked the intent but it failed in the execution in so many ways.
There are parts of it I adore. I love the story of their past and the way Nora slowly learns to trust Adrian. But, for such a smart woman, she’s so undone by her need to be loved by her brother and by her belief that the past is more important than what is real NOW.
I also had a big problem with how religion was handled in it as well. At first it’s a huge problem and a major divide then people basically do 180 degree turn so they can end up in the religion that’s the most beneficial historically. I didn’t find it realistic at all. People that committed to a religion don’t change over night. Even some royalty that had to change or give up a religion to get a crown were usually practicing their old one on the sly and/or converted on their death bed. It’s not the anything goes attitude of today.
Agreed.
At Your Pleasure is probably my favorite Duran novel. Such intensity and chemistry between the main couple. I also loved the much underused setting of the early 18th century. I miss Duran’s writing so much.
I miss Duran’s writing as well. Does anyone know if she is going to return to writing again?
I would be surprised, honestly, if she returns. She had posted a couple of years ago that she would be on hiatus for a year, but it’s been two now and no sign that I’ve seen from her. I still look from time to time to see if there are updates anywhere. I hope I’m wrong!
Definitely a favorite trope — all that heat and unresolved tension, and it’s a trope that works equally well as a comedy or a drama. This year, I completely fell in love with Sarah Hogles’s You Deserve Each Other. It’s probably the book that most closely resembles Sally Thorne’s amazing The Hating Game, though I felt a bit teary in parts of Hogles’s book. Thorne’s is comedy through and through.
Other favs in this subgenre: Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels and Dukes Prefers Blondes. Chase just has such mastery over pent up antagonism.
Lucy Parker’s books – all of them, I think, and they’re all incredible. The Austen Playbook and Pretty Face are my favorites but this year’s Headliners might better fit the true enemies to lovers trope.
Mariana Zapata – Queen of the slow burn but also does a fabulous job with enemies to lovers, especially Kulti.
Others worth mentioning: Elizabeth Kingston’s The King’s Man; Meredith Duran’s Written on Your Skin, Fool Me Twice, and At Your Pleasure; and Joanna Bourne’s The Spymaster’s Lady and The Blackhawk; Judith Ivory’s Untie My Heart. Though a secondary romance, I also really like the enemies to lovers older couple from Anne Stuart’s Reckless.
As you say, it really works whether it’s played for laughs or the stakes are quite serious. A lot of my favorite couples from Beatrice and Benedick and Hepburn and Tracey bantering on the lighter end of things up to some deadly battles in the more dramatic books and movies it’s a trope I love.
Evangelina and Simon in Reckless are sublime.
Love Reckless! Although I wish authors in general wouldn’t do that “all the books in this series sound the same and give no clue to the actual plot” because I have to Go back and check “which one is Reckless now?”
The BEST one.
A favourite of mine that hasn’t been mentioned yet (although another by the author was in an earlier comment): Her Best Worst Mistake by Sarah Mayberry. A case of opposites attracting so hard they repelled each other beyond reason, if ever there was one.
I love that book. (Although I like Hot Island Nights even better. )
With (different sides) enemies-to-lovers as my favourite romance trope, I absolutely hate that the term is misused for petty dislike-to-love as it makes finding my favourite trope impossible. Unsurprisingly the 2 standout couples from my favourite trope, Annique and Gray and Aral and Cordelia are already mentioned here.
This trope is one of my favourite, specially if it’s a slow burn romance. Some of my faourite books are int his category. Some of them are more enemies to lovers, others more from “someone I really don’t like” to lovers… But here they are:
– The Hating Game
– The Opposite of You by Rachel Higginson
– The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
– Kulti and From Lukov With Love by Mariana Zapata
– The Viscount who loved me by Julia Quinn
– It Happened One Autumn by Lisa Kleypas
– Slightly Dangerous by Mary Balogh
– Headliners by Lucy Parker (just finishing it and it’s great)
I love this trope because it’s built in tension from the get go. But I would agree that the “hate” is usually built on misunderstanding.
Some of my favorites are The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn, It Happened One Autumn and Married by Morning by Lisa Kleypas (although I loved the leadup to Married by Morning more than the actual book itself).
I loved Married by Morning. I really couldn’t stand Leo in the first book at all but Kleypas really turned him around for me when she brought back his sense of humor. I thought he and “Marks” made a great pair and I bought into the romance. If he could love someone as much as his first tragic love I believed he could love Marks as much. I liked it when he said he “loved too much” or too intensely as her practicality balanced him out.
I definitely enjoyed Married by Morning (it was an 8.5/10 for me), but I remember absolutely loving their chemistry/banter in the previous couple of books. I don’t recall the details, but I wonder if it’s conflict and resolution of the actual story that made the book a bit lackluster – I just remember feeling that the book could’ve been better than it was.
I often feel like that when a secondary couple finally get their book, but in this case it all worked for me. The whole Hathaways series was a big hit for me and apart from the second book (I thought Kev/Merripen was just unreasonable, unpleasant and no fun) I really enjoyed them all. I could even put Bea’s story under this trope as well as she and Christopher are enemies of a sort for a good part of their book.
So with you about Kev.
The first not already mentioned book that springs to my mind is Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James (two lawyers competing for the same position).
Shards of Honor and Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
The MCs are skilled warriors and literal enemies, stranded together, and must find a way to cooperate in order to survive.
Oh my god, Cordelia and Aral are SOOO good.
I hadn’t heard of “Shards of Honor” before. This sounds like just the type of story I’ve been talking about. Where have I been? Thanks for the rec.
Shards and Barrayar were published as separate books but really they are a single story arc. If you decide to read the first, plan to read the second as well. :-)
You can buy both as a single volume called Cordelia’s Honor.
Love this trope & some authors do it so well!
Highlights on my bookshelf:
Bench Player, Julianna Keyes
A Heart of Blood and Ashes, Milla Vane
Hazard & Somerset (early books), Gregory Ashe
Heated Rivalry, Rachel Reid
A Wicked Kind of Husband, Mia Vincy
Salt Magic Skin Magic, Lee Welch
Natural Enemies, Roan Parrish
Luck of the Draw, Kate Clayborn
The King’s Man, Elizabeth Kingston
Kingston’s The King’s Man is one of my favorite enemies to lovers romances. I forgot about Vincy’s A Wicked Kind of Husband and Clayborn’s Luck of the Draw but totally agree with those two choices too!
Some oldies but goodies:
The Rebel and the Redcoat by Jan Constant (British Captain escorts a Highland lass accused of murder from Scotland to London to stand trial–takes place shortly after Culloden if IIRC)
My Love, My Enemy by Jan Cox Speas (two people on opposite sides of the War of 1812 fall in love — there’s respect rather than hate between them)
Faro’s Daughter by Georgette Heyer (I didn’t appreciate this when I first read the book, but I developed a new appreciation for it after listening to the audio narrated by Laura Paton, which I wholeheartedly loved.)
Oliva and Jai by Rebecca Ryman is a very memorable historical set in India with a dysfunctional love affair between two people who put each other through hell.
Laura Paton was fabulous, she changed my opinion about FARO’S DAUGHTER.
Bec McMaster has done several that I love including the already mentioned Dukes Are Forever along with My Lady Quicksilver, Shadowbound, etc, Joanna Bourne’s Black Hawk and The Spymaster’s Lady are two great examples and as Caroline pointed out pretty much all of hers could qualify.
I haven’t read it in years but My Dearest Enemy by Connie Brockway is a good one (but I remember thinking the ending needed more oomph). Kresley Cole has several in her Immortals After Dark series. Lothaire springs to mind (although it’s kind of one sided) as well as Wicked Deeds On A Winter’s Night, Dreams of A Dark Warrior, and Dark Skye and several others. It’s kind of her stock and trade in that series!
I immediately thought of Lothaire. I recently did a relisten and laughed all the way through.
It’s one of those books that start out so horribly that I thought “how is this ever going to turn into a romance?” But I ended up really enjoying it. The whole “supernatural” thing really helps as well because it’s all so over the top. And I loved the heroine. And it’s genuinely funny while it also made me cry a time or two as well. I wouldn’t recommend it as a “one off” though. You definitely have to build up to it.
I’ve probably already posted something like this here (or elsewhere), so apologies for the repetition. I agree with @ElaineS, I don’t like the term “enemies-to-lovers,” I prefer “antagonists-to-lovers”—and, when it’s done right, it’s one of my favorite tropes. There have to be valid reasons for the antagonism on both sides and the behavior of the MCs has to proceed organically from those reasons and not because of emotional immaturity or abusive tendencies. I absolutely love it when the MCs realize how much they admire and are unwillingly attracted to their antagonist. One of my older favorites is Sarah Mayberry’s HER FAVORITE RIVAL, about two coworkers vying for the same promotion. To me, it is the book THE HATING GAME wanted to be. (Not to go off on a tangent—and with all due respect for those who love it—but I really disliked THE HATING GAME: the MCs acted like 8th graders in some workplace cos-play game and I kept wondering if Sally Thorne had actually ever been in an office, let alone worked in one.) In addition to the aforementioned HEATED RIVALRY (my favorite book last year), which is so good at showing how two rival hockey players gradually transition from “scratching an itch” hookups to true love, I’d also thrown in CD Reiss’s IRON CROWNE (another favorite book of 2019): she’s an environmental lawyer, he’s a real estate developer with a reputation for skirting environmental regulations. They meet when her law firm sues his company and sparks fly. Reiss does a really good job of keeping the sexual tension on a constant simmer and of being even-handed as to the feelings and motivations of both the hero and heroine. Great stuff!
Hey, DiscoDollyDeb, I know you read quite a few dark mafia romances. Would you classify any of those as enemies-to-lovers or antagonists-to-lovers, or do you consider them to be a different trope entirely? Just wondering about the amount of overlap between the two.
@Nan: I think almost all “dark” romance (and that’s a big umbrella, but mafia/crime/mob romance all fit underneath it, along with really dark abduction/captivity/dubious-consent stories) involve antagonists-to-lovers because in most cases the MCs are on opposite sides of a feud/turf war or their families have been in opposition for generations. I understand that dark romance is not to everyone’s taste, but you’re right that most of them do fit the enemies/antagonists-to-lovers trope.
https://allaboutromance.com/review-tag/mafia/
Thanks for writing back. I agree that tropes can definitely overlap, especially in certain subgenres. This is also true in books from publishers that are cool with mixing and mashing story types. Carina Press immediately comes to mind. Harlequin, I’ve noticed, tends to be a little more straightforward in the sense of, “Okay, readers, we are sticking with *one* main trope/storyline here, because that’s what *this* line does..” At least, that’s been my impression. Both experimental and formulaic works are fine with me. :)
On a side note, I think it’s cool we have such a diversity of romance likes and dislikes here at AAR.
I prefer the term “antagonism” to enemies as well because I think it speaks more accurately to the unresolved and conflicting ideas two characters have for each other. An enemy to me is someone who truly wishes you harm. Antagonists in a romance are full of heated and conflicting feelings, many negative, but not all, and once the hostilities are resolved, these are some of the most romantic stories because the main characters are utterly relieved they can rejoice in their true feelings.
I think part of the fun of the “antagonist” books is that often the hero and the heroine, while disliking each other are the only two people on their “level”. They are the only person in the story worthy of being their foe intellectually which makes it that much more fun when they finally come together and everything seems right,
Right! There is an equality in their respective strengths that they recognize in each other and appreciate, even grudgingly.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who disliked THE HATING GAME.
I haven’t read it yet, but it’s one book I remember hearing really varied reviews on. Some people love it and some people hate it. I think I may own it so I might break it out and see where I fall on the love vs hate.
Usually the enemies are just two people who are full of misunderstanding or have incorrect information about the other person. To me, “enemies to lovers” has always been a bit of a misnomer and I prefer to think of this trope as more of “finally getting your heads on straight”. And what better place to start than Darcy and Elizabeth? Enemies – no, not exactly – but both have got the complete wrong end of the stick. Darcy behaves unlike the gentleman he really is and Elizabeth needs to grow up. At the end, pride, prejudice, willing misunderstanding, ignorance and immaturity is the contributing factor to the trope.
If you need your memory jogged, try our enemies to lovers tag!!!
https://allaboutromance.com/review-tag/enemies-to-lovers/
The two that came to mind immediately for me were An Unnatural Vice by KJ Charles and Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid. Both of them are m/m so I’ll have a think about m/f I’ve enjoyed with that trope.
Completely agree with both those. I can be hard to find an enemies-to-lovers romance where the animosity is strong enough to really warrant the “enemies” label – but those two certainly manage it!
Several of Joanna Bourne’s Spymasters books meet that qualification.
Wow! Great topic. Even before I started reading romance, I always had a soft spot for the enemies to allies trope and/or temporary truces. Think about movies like “Enemy Mine,” “The Defiant Ones,” or certain episodes of “Combat!” or similar TV shows where two designated enemies, usually military, are forced to rely upon one another to survive. And along the way, they discover they aren’t so different after all and might actually *gasp* become friends. It’s a cliché, but I love it.
As for enemies to lovers in romance, whether in print or in media, I can’t recall a lot of examples of that happening in my reading and viewing. A lot of reviews I’ve read of enemies to lovers romances complain that the characters spend a lot of time sniping at each other for no good reason or an extremely petty one, so I have to confess I haven’t given the trope a fair try. In order for a story of this nature to work for me, the stakes need to be higher than ridiculous office rivalries. I’m thinking more along the lines of, “Oh, great. These drug dealers just handcuffed me to someone I *hate* because we have a rocky past (and/or I have some prejudices I need to get over), and now we have to call a truce just to get out of here alive.”
I know I’ve mentioned this story a lot, but I think James Kirkwood’s “P.S. Your Cat is Dead” works as an enemies to (almost) lovers story because the protagonist has captured a burglar who stole his manuscript (among other things), and the burglar is understandably pissed about getting caught and tied to the kitchen table. But, for various reasons, they both have some baggage they end up overcoming together for a highly improbable but fun HEA.
So, in short, yes to enemies to lovers as long as the stakes are high enough.