Compelling, entertaining, and addictive. The Atlas Six is academic Darwinism: survival of the smartest with a healthy dose of magic."—T.L. Huchu, author of The Library of The Dead I love Marya Antonova with every fiber of my being, and I WILL DEFEND HER ACTIONS UNTIL MY DYING BREATHE. I think Marya had the best character downfall in this book, and it was especially satisfying watching her become consumed by grief and vengeance and finally reach her full potential. She is the embodiment of female rage and could stab me in the heart, and I would still fall on my knees and praise her entire being. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes an intricate web of love, magic, and rival witch families in New York City. It doesn’t seem fair that the three brothers all get POVs and their own agendas, while more than half of the Antonovas get nothing.

One for My Enemy by Olivie Blake | Goodreads

A feud between two powerful witch families heats up, thanks to two pairs of star-crossed lovers and an ambitious middle son, in this stand-alone by the author of The Atlas Six (2022).olivie blake knows exactly how to captivate readers' attention span while consistently emotionally draining us. one for my enemy genuinely took the oxygen out of my lungs and wrenched my heart at numerous points throughout this story. blake's writing is just staggeringly beautiful with not just dialogue but with creating the secret setting of witches in a modern era so atmospheric with the new york location, a dash of politics and of course focus on two rivaling witch families grappling for power in the criminal underworld. she executed weaving in the lore of koschei and marya and romeo & juliet retelling perfectly to me as a reader, especially in the structure of this story as well as in build-up and pure angst. the multi-perspective of this book had readers anticipating when characters' would find out what we knew which was brilliant. the skill in taking time to build on the persona of every single character in this book with their feelings and motives. with this, we were able to see the sibling dynamics and their innermost thoughts on their roles in their respective families along with how they grew up resulted in the people they are in the present timeline. my only critique was the pacing with how the plot felt dragged out by the end with the conflict taking long to resolve. ONE FOR MY ENEMY is a little more straight-forward and other than being a classic retelling there isn't much pretension at all. Plus not only was it Shakespearean at it's core but it also had the delightful bonus of Russian/Slavic folktales with the inclusion of the Baba Yaga and Koschei monikers. So that was fun. Oh, also? Witches. There's a lot of good going on here. And we open with quite a bang. There were characters I liked and characters I didn’t, but my main issue is how fleshed out the brothers were compared to the sisters.

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But it's Olivie Blake we're talking about. This didn't feel like it had her signature je ne sais quoi, replete with big themes and big ideas. In any case, I was doomed before I began. I have issues with Romeo and Juliet. I have issues with Shakespeare. So a white Englishman is writing about Italians. These Italians are turned Russian-esque for the sake of what? Did we even research Baba Yaga and Koschei the Deathless before using their names? dima and misha ❤️‍🩹, when i was reading this i thought they were side characters at first but THEY ARE THE MAIN CHARACTERS. their love was so pure and although masha was married and had not spoken to him in 12 years, you could tell how much love they have and will always have for eachother. it was so pure and blissful. dima just knew what to say to masha, he would have given up everything for her 🥹The power plays and politics were another bit I liked, and it all had this deliciously tense feeling to it. But I do wish the magic was explained a little more clearly, as I’m still not entirely sure how it works. The Antonova sisters are beautiful, cunning and ruthless, and their mother—known as Baba Yaga—is a elusive supplier of intoxicants.