One For My Enemy by Olivie Blake (Review)

Title: One For My Enemy
Author: Olivie Blake
Type: Fiction
Genre: Adult, Fantasy
Publisher: Tor Books
Date published: April 4, 2023

A complimentary physical copy of this book was kindly provided by Raincoast Books in exchange for an honest review.

In modern-day Manhattan where we lay our scene, two rival witch families fight to maintain control of their respective criminal ventures.

On one side of the conflict are the Antonova sisters — each one beautiful, cunning, and ruthless — and their mother, the elusive supplier of premium intoxicants, known only as Baba Yaga. On the other side, the influential Fedorov brothers serve their father, the crime boss known as Koschei the Deathless, whose community extortion ventures dominate the shadows of magical Manhattan.

After twelve years of tenuous co-existence, a change in one family’s interests causes a rift in the existing stalemate. When bad blood brings both families to the precipice of disaster, fate intervenes with a chance encounter, and in the aftershocks of a resurrected conflict, everyone must choose a side. As each of the siblings struggles to stake their claim, fraying loyalties threaten to rot each side from the inside out.

If, that is, the enmity between empires doesn’t destroy them first.

⤖ My Review ⬻

Olivie Blake’s One For My Enemy was my second experience with one of her books and I therefore wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I was happy to find that one of the first things I noticed, though, was that the quality of her writing is phenomenal. I would pause and read a sentence over again just to appreciate the way it’s formulated. (Hey, there’s a reason I went back to school for another English degree, haha).

What’s super cool about Blake’s words is how she creates scenes that practically pop out of the pages for me. A lot of scenes unfolded in my mind as if I were watching them on a television. I also really enjoyed the Shakespearian vibes mixed in with New York City as a setting, with a dash of the supernatura. It definitely made for an interesting experience.

What has happened with me twice now with Blake’s books (first with The Atlas Six), however, is that the writing almost keeps me at an arm’s length, at a distance—I feel like I can’t get very close to the characters. For the most part, I feel like someone looking down/in rather than being immersed in the scenes. As I delved deeper into One For My Enemy, I grew fond of some of the characters regardless… but I definitely noticed that I wasn’t as immersed in the story because of that distance or barrier I felt.

Overall, I enjoyed the ups and downs of One For My Enemy and found the characters and world to be very intriguing. I will also say that I liked that this book was a standalone and that the story wraps up satisfactorily (at least for me). I think this type of story works well for a standalone—I might have found waiting to be quite frustrating if it had been split into multiple books. I definitely recommend One For My Enemy to fans of Blake’s other books, those who enjoy Shakespearian retellings, and also those who like a dash of paranormal in their reads.

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Olivie Blake is the pseudonym of Alexene Farol Follmuth, a lover and writer of stories, many of which involve the fantastic, the paranormal, or the supernatural, but not always. More often, her works revolve around what it means to be human (or not), and the endlessly interesting complexities of life and love. Olivie has penned several indie SFF projects, including the webtoon Clara and the Devil with illustrator Little Chmura and the viral Atlas series. As Follmuth, her young adult rom-com My Mechanical Romance releases May 2022. Olivie lives in Los Angeles with her husband and new baby, where she is generally tolerated by her rescue pit bull.