I honestly had a bit of an enemies-to-lovers relationship with this book. I've said before that it's not a trope I typically enjoy, and it was my own fault that when I started reading it I just wasn't in the mood to read a romance that begins with people bickering at each other. I arguably should have DNF'd, but I didn't feel like picking another book so I just stuck with it.

I'm not sure when it happened, but I did absolutely fall in love with the characters and setting. This is true cozy fantasy, where the world feels full of people and magic and it's the people and their daily lives that are the focus of the plot. This is probably the closest book I've found that scratches the same itch as Legends and Lattes. 

I appreciated how much the other characters outside of the romance factored into the story. There was some good showing-vs-telling of the importance of platonic love and support in addition to romance. The author also managed something I think is missing in a lot of "found family," which is to not have the members of the found family just be perfect and right all the time. They felt like people who made mistakes and assumptions, too. 

While all that was great, I definitely enjoyed the romance very much. I found Ambrose and Eli compelling as individuals, and the slow build of their chemistry was done nicely. I felt their stress and tension during the rivalry and could understand why they would behave the way they did, and it was satisfying to watch them switch gears as they learned more about each other.