The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley – Review

Published: July 8, 2025

Publisher: Ace

Series: Dearly Beloathed #1

Genre: Fantasy Romance

Pages: 383 (Kindle)

My Rating: 5 Stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
The first in a slow burn, enemies-to-lovers romantasy duology featuring a scholarly healer and a gentleman assassin, set in an exquisite fantasy world, perfect for fans of The Love Hypothesis and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries.

Osric Mordaunt, member of the Fyren Order of assassins, is in dire need of healing. Naturally – such is the grim comedy of fate – the only healer who can help is Aurienne Fairhrim, preeminent scientist, bastion of moral good, and member of an enemy Order.

Aurienne is desperate for funding to heal the sick – so desperate that, when Osric bribes her to help him, she accepts, even if she detests him and everything he stands for.

A forced collaboration ensues: the brilliant Woman in STEM is coerced into working with the PhD in Murders, much to Aurienne’s disgust. As Osric and Aurienne work together to heal his illness and investigate the mysterious reoccurrence of a deadly pox, they find themselves ardently denying their attraction, which only fuels the heat between them.

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Okay folks, Dramione fan-fic inspired book #1 of 2025 has been read and guess what? It was actually amazing and I completely loved it! I saw a not-so-great review for it a few weeks ago from another blogger and honestly went in expecting what I usually get from romance heavy books – a bit of popcorn fun with some spice. What I did not expect was the level of bawdy humor (loved it) and the ridiculous amount of tangible yearning. There’s no insta-love here. Only insta-hate.

The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy follows Osric Mordaunt, Fyren assassin extraordinaire, and Aurienne Fairhrim, a brilliant healer of the Haelan Order as they are forced to work with one another. Osric’s magic is dying and Aurienne is the only person who could possibly reverse the damage, unfortunately, she hates him on principle because he’s an assassin. He speeds up death while she tries to slow it down. Osric donates 20 million thrymsas (fantastical currency!) to the Haelan order at Swanstone, which they desperately need to develop a vaccination for a pox epidemic and Aurienne is cajoled by her superior to help Osric. Aurienne resents this very much but is now duty bound to help this vile man who she daren’t admit has rather handsome features and nice veins in his forearms… Osric thinks Aurienne has a stick up her ass and hates to admit even to himself that she’s quite beautiful. The two meet up every full moon to try some harebrained rituals in an attempt to cure Osric’s magical degradation and verbally spar. Of course, over time they both have somewhat of a change of heart toward one another but won’t admit it.

The dynamic between these two characters is one of my favorite things ever. The humor, which as I said earlier is quite bawdy at times, made me laugh repeatedly. The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy is a barrel of fun and I enjoyed everything about it. The worldbuilding is admittedly a bit confusing, mostly because I couldn’t determine exactly what time frame we were in or if it was a totally alternate world with only somewhat familiar place names. Either way, that didn’t matter much at all and might be cleared up with a nice map or a re-read.

Overall, I completely loved this book and I’m so glad I decided to check it out after some initial hesitancy due to an already busy July ARC schedule. I will be tracking down a physical copy (hopefully a pretty special edition one) when it’s released on July 8. The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy is the first in a duology which makes me sad because now I have to wait for the next installment. This would be a divinely fun book to binge at the beach or simply if you need something to give you a good laugh and some excellent yearning that made me smile. Also, if you’re hesitant because this was based on a fanfic, don’t be, because I really couldn’t tell and I knew it was based on one thanks info around the book-o-sphere and some marketing I’d seen. All in all, this will definitely be going on my Best Books of 2025 list!

(At a glance I can only see the resemblance of Osric to Gwendoline Christie (aka Brienne of Tarth) on this particular cover.)