Depending on your interpretation, enemies-to-lovers has a very long history in romance novels, at least back to Pride and Prejudice. For heterosexual romances, enemies to lovers has always been a higher mountain to climb (in my interpretation) than friends to lovers. Sometimes, the simple miscommunication between friends isn’t enough to get me to root for the main pair. Since it’s such a common trope, writers focusing on LGBTQ romance have found interesting and fun ways to adapt the trope for queer romance. The great thing about tropes is that they can exist in essentially any romance genre, from fantasy to sci-fi to the contemporary. Whatever your flavor of romance genre is, you can find something that satisfies the enemies to lovers trope as well.
From Enemies To So Much More
The Joy of Enemies-to-Lovers
As with all book genres, finding the perfect romance novel is about the mix of tropes and location or time period that are a good match for you, not just picking a random one out of a bin and expecting it to be right. There are many joys to enemies to lovers, but the chief one for me is reading about messy, imperfect characters who don’t make the best impressions finding empathy and affection for each other. It’s comforting to imagine being your worst self and still being lovable. With enemies-to-lovers, whether it’s villains or enemies of circumstance or driven by a misunderstanding, the growth of the relationship gives you something to root for. There are a ton of enemies-to-lovers books for YA fans and contemporary fans as well: an endlessly refilling bowl of reads.
