Title: Enemies Like You
Author: Annika Martin & Joanna Chambers
Date of publication: 15 May 2017
Genre: Romantic suspense, MM romance
Annika Martin:
Joanna Chambers:
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My rating: 3 stars
Blurb
They're dangerous men. Absolute enemies. And totally hot for each other.
Will has never met anyone like Kit. He’s arrogant. Gorgeous. Lethal. The most expensive bodyguard money can buy.
And Will can’t seem to resist him.
A simple command in Kit's cut-glass accent makes Will want things he’s never wanted, do things he’s never done. Their red-hot chemistry is off the charts.
Just one problem: Will has vowed to kill the billionaire that Kit is hell-bent on protecting.
And Kit has secrets, too—his own reasons for sacrificing his soul, piece by painful piece, to keep one of the worst men on earth alive.
Review
When two favourite authors team together who could resist reading their joint book. Carolyn Crane (aka Annika Martin) has written my favourte mf romantic suspense, The Associates series, and Joanna Chamber's mm historicals are a joy to read.
The prologue to this romance which is actually the first 8 chapters and is available for free was totally addicting and left me impatient to see what happens with these two. I admit Will read a bit amateurish as an undercover agent, though I expected to see him acting more professionally in the rest of the story. This was not the case and I ended up sadly disappointed in this aspect of the story.
I liked Will much better as a person and in his reactions to Kit. I liked seeing him break down and rationalise his attraction to Kit, his desire to submit (which was a new thing for him and which he found surprising and a bit unnerving initially but came to accept as part of himself and eventually enjoyed it in the fullest). Kit, oh Kit was my favourite, so self-assured initially, gradually we see his troubled soul.
The romance was the best element of this story for me, enemies-to-lovers is a favourite trope of mine and it was powerfully and convincingly done here. There is a lot of character growth and the more I saw of the inner world of these two, the more I fell in love them and rooted for their HEA.
My main complaint with this book was the suspense plot. It felt rather weak, bordering on ridiculous at times and I hated it. It was an unpleasant surprise to be honest since I know both authors can do so much better than that. I'm not really familiar with spy/undercover work but a lot of it here felt naive, too contrived, a particular subplot with Kit's parents was definitely overdone in my opinion. I do realise that reading romantic suspense requires some suspension of belief but it felt too much for me to buy into the spy stuff.
Another thing that did not sit very well with me in this story and I feel it should be mentioned was the bit with Kit's cross-dressing. I found it interesting in the beginning but than the way it was further presented in the story felt disturbing, like it was there just for shock value and not an integral part of character. Will and Kit did have an honest conversation about it but I still feel it was a poorly done element in the story.
Another thing that did not sit very well with me in this story and I feel it should be mentioned was the bit with Kit's cross-dressing. I found it interesting in the beginning but than the way it was further presented in the story felt disturbing, like it was there just for shock value and not an integral part of character. Will and Kit did have an honest conversation about it but I still feel it was a poorly done element in the story.
