The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy

Knightley’s frustrating debut romantasy and Dearly Beloathed duology launch unsuccessfully mixes the tone and humor of 1960s British sex farces with a convoluted biological warfare plot. In an alternate England where the Norman invasion failed, magicians join one of eight orders, including the Haelens (healer-scholars) and the Fyren (shadow-walking assassins). Fyren Osric Mordaunt has a disease known as seith rot, which could end in complete magic loss, and turns to Haelen Aurienne Fairhrim, the world specialist on seith channels, or mystical energy streams that allow the use of magic. Aurienne despises all Fyren on principal, but Osric makes an offer she can’t refuse: a hefty donation to support otherwise unfunded research into a pox outbreak. Aurienne and Osric initially clash, but grow unwillingly (and unconvincingly) to care about each other, as they explore old magic and the new spread of the pox. Knightley overrelies on gross-out humor (“He rubbed his hands like a fly that has found particularly succulent poo“) and naughty jokes, and the light tone never gels with the more serious subject matter. Only the most diehard enemies-to-lovers fans need apply. Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (July)