ARC Review: Dearly Beloathed #1

The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy

by Brigitte Knightley

Publication Date: July 8, 2025

Summary from Netgalley:

Loyalties are tested in this slow burn, enemies-to-lovers romantasy following an assassin and a healer forced to work together to cure a fatal disease, all while resisting the urge to kill each other—or, worse, fall in love.

When Osric Mordaunt, member of the Fyren Order of assassins, falls ill, he realizes he needs the expertise of a very specific healer. As fate would have it, that healer belongs to an enemy faction, the Haelan Order.

Aurienne Fairhrim and her fellow Haelan are inundated by sick children suffering from an outbreak of a long-forgotten Pox. Unable to get the funding needed to launch an immunization program, the Haelan Order is desperate for money – so desperate that when Osric breaks into their headquarters to bribe Aurienne to heal him, she is forced to accept.

As Osric and Aurienne work together to solve not only his illness but the mysterious reoccurrence of the Pox, they find themselves ardently denying their attraction which only fuels the tension between them.

ARC provided by Berkley Publishing Group via Netgalley for an honest review.

Confession:

This delightful romantasy will not appeal to everyone, mostly because of the bawdy language, which I grant was a little overused. But I found it to be quite amusing and I loved the slow burn enemies to lovers storyline.

So many enemies to lovers story just develop way too fast lately, or it seems that the enemies aspect of the story really doesn’t quite work, they really aren’t enemies, they just don’t like each other. But these two are truly enemies and really should have nothing to do with each other. But circumstances throw them together and they soon find themselves denying their feelings. It was so fun to watch their feelings change as they got to know each other.

Osric was a fun character even though he was a bit full of himself. He is a very accomplished assassin and therefore thinks everyone admires him and that his charms will work on everyone. Until he meets Aurienne who really wants nothing to do with him. Aurienne is the best at what she does, and she doesn’t have the time or inclination to help Osric, until she is forced by her superior. Granted Osric does a nice thing to get that help, by giving her order lots of money, but she still doesn’t want to do it. The narrative switches between their points of view and it was a lot of fun seeing their ideas about each other change over the course of the story.

The world building was interesting, it is an alternative England where magic is readily available. But there could have been a bit more of an explanation of how the magical system works. Osric is losing his magic because of an old injury and we get a bit of a medical explanation about the magic but that is it. But eventually you just sort of go with it and that works too.

Many people will probably find the language and all of the sexual references and jokes a bit over the top, but I actually found it kind of endearing after awhile, especially the bawdy banter between Osric and Aurienne. But it was also a little bit tiresome after awhile. The author is somewhat known for her fanfic, and this book does sort of remind me of that style of writing.

The plot of the story is quite good. As I mentioned I really liked the slow burn romance and the banter between them was excellent. There is some gory stuff, especially when we are privy to scenes where Osric is busy with his job, which seemed a bit much. But I liked the overall plot of the story. There is a bit of a mystery involving the illness that is affecting only children. We get a bit of a hint about what is really going on with that at the end which made me really want to read the next book.

Overall I really did like this story, although I could have done with a little bit less of the sex jokes and gore. But the characters are fun, the enemies to lovers story is top notch and it was fun watching these two slowly start to have feelings for each other.