Enemies to lovers is a romance trope in which two characters start out opposed to each other, through dislike, rivalry or a real conflict of interest, and fall in love over the course of the story. The hostility is the barrier that keeps them apart, and watching it break down is the pleasure of the book. Its best-known models are Beatrice and Benedick in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and both are quoted below from the texts themselves.
What Does Enemies to Lovers Mean?
Enemies to lovers describes the shape of a relationship, not a plot. The couple begin on opposite sides and end together. In between, the reason for the hostility has to be answered, and both of them have to change.
The "enemies" do not have to be villains or soldiers on opposite sides. Most are ordinary people who clash: a rival at work, the heir of a family feud, the person whose plan ruins yours. What makes it the trope is that the opposition is real to both characters at the start and that it is the main thing keeping them apart.
Pamela Regis, in A Natural History of the Romance Novel (2003), calls that obstacle the barrier: "The “barrier” is the conflict in a romance novel; it is anything that keeps the union of heroine and hero from taking place". In an enemies-to-lovers book, the barrier is the couple's own opposition. Regis traces Pride and Prejudice's conflict back to one line, Darcy's verdict on Elizabeth at the first ball: "Thus begins the conflict between Elizabeth and Darcy, the barrier to their eventual betrothal."
What Are the Types of Enemies to Lovers?
Readers and booksellers split the trope into several close relatives. The difference is how deep the opposition goes.
| Variant | Where the hostility comes from | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Enemies to lovers | A real wrong, feud or opposed goal | Elizabeth and Darcy; Margaret Hale and John Thornton |
| Rivals to lovers | Competition for the same prize | Lucy and Joshua in The Hating Game |
| Enemies to friends to lovers | The same, with a friendship stage before the romance | Common in slow burn romance |
| Lovers to enemies to lovers | A past relationship that ended badly | Overlaps with second chance romance |
| Sworn enemies (fantasy) | Opposed sides of a war, court or kingdom | Jude and Cardan in The Cruel Prince |
Book Riot's guide to the trope draws the same line between true enemies and competitors, and gives The Hating Game as a book often filed under enemies to lovers whose leads are really rivals. The label matters because it is a promise to the reader about how hard the way back will be. Rivals need only to stop competing. Enemies have to forgive.
Where Does the Enemies-to-Lovers Trope Come From?
The pattern is centuries older than the name. These are the early examples usually given, checked against the texts.
Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur (1485). In the tale of Sir Gareth, the damsel Linet scorns the young knight she thinks is a kitchen boy, through most of the quest: "Fie, fie, foul kitchen knave". SYFY Wire's history of the trope names Gareth and Lynette as the first enemies-to-lovers couple in Western literature. But in Malory, Gareth does not marry her. The tale ends: "Thus endeth this tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney that wedded Dame Lionesse of the Castle Perilous. And also Sir Gaheris wedded her sister, Dame Linet". The romance between Gareth and Lynette is Tennyson's, in Gareth and Lynette (1872), which admits the change in its last lines: "And he that told the tale in older times / Says that Sir Gareth wedded Lyonors, / But he, that told it later, says Lynette."
Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (first published 1600). Beatrice and Benedick are the template for the sparring couple. Her uncle explains them in the first scene: "There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her; they never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit between them." Their first exchange is an insult each way ("I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you." "What! my dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?"). Their friends trick each into overhearing that the other is in love, and both give in within a scene. Benedick: "When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married." Beatrice: "Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!" In Act 5 Benedick sums them up: "Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably."
Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813). Darcy's first words about Elizabeth are a snub: "She is tolerable: but not handsome enough to tempt me". When he proposes in chapter 34, she tells him he is "the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry." His letter makes her see her own part in it, and in chapter 36 she says: "Till this moment, I never knew myself." Near the end, Darcy cannot say when his feelings began: "I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun."
Gaskell, North and South (1855). Margaret Hale, a southern parson's daughter, despises the Milton mill owner John Thornton. Her answer to his proposal in chapter 24: "Your way of speaking shocks me. It is blasphemous." The novel spends the rest of its length taking that back.
The phrase "enemies to lovers" itself grew up among readers rather than critics. It became a standard tag in fan fiction, where SYFY Wire counted "just over 53,000 works tagged enemies-to-lovers on Archive of Our Own" in 2021, and publishers now use it in marketing: UK paperback listings of Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue carry the subtitle "A Royally Romantic Enemies to Lovers Bestseller". The book trade has made it official: the Book Industry Study Group BISAC subject list, the codes publishers use to shelve books, includes FIC027570 FICTION / Romance / Enemies to Lovers. It sits among the other romance tropes readers now search by name.
Is Romeo and Juliet Enemies to Lovers?
Not in the usual sense. Their families are enemies, but Romeo and Juliet never oppose each other. Juliet's reaction on learning his name is that she has fallen for her family's enemy, not that she hates him: "My only love sprung from my only hate!" That is forbidden love: the barrier is outside the couple. In enemies to lovers the barrier is between them, and it is the couple who have to change. Romeo and Juliet also ends in death, which the romance genre rules out.
Why Do Readers Love Enemies to Lovers?
Because the barrier is the story, and readers get to watch it fall. Regis puts it plainly: "Seeing the barrier overcome is for many readers and writers the focus of the book." The trope makes that barrier as high and as personal as it can be. Three more reasons come up again and again:
- Built-in conflict. Every scene the couple share has tension before anything happens. That is why the trope suits dialogue-led writing.
- Proof of change. A couple who start as enemies cannot end together unless both have grown. The love story doubles as two character arcs.
- Being seen at their worst. Enemies show each other their worst first. When one finally sees the best in the other, it reads as earned.
It is also one of the most searched romance tropes. In Google Keyword Planner data we pulled for the United States in November 2026, the monthly searches were:
| Search | Average monthly searches (US) |
|---|---|
| enemies to lovers books | 18,100 |
| enemies to lovers | 12,100 |
| friends to lovers | 8,100 |
| marriage of convenience | 5,400 |
| slow burn romance | 4,400 |
| forced proximity | 2,400 |
| second chance romance | 1,900 |
| rivals to lovers | 1,600 |
| fake dating | 1,300 |
What Are Some Enemies-to-Lovers Books?
These are well-known examples across the variants. The summaries are from the texts or the publishers' own descriptions.
| Book | Couple | Why they start as enemies |
|---|---|---|
| Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare (1600) | Beatrice and Benedick | A "merry war" of wit and pride |
| Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (1813) | Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy | His snub, her prejudice, his pride |
| North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell (1855) | Margaret Hale and John Thornton | Class, region and a strike |
| The Hating Game, Sally Thorne (2016) | Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman | Rival assistants competing for one promotion |
| The Cruel Prince, Holly Black (2018) | Jude Duarte and Prince Cardan | A mortal girl in Faerie and the prince who despises humans |
| Red, White & Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston (2019) | Alex Claremont-Diaz and Prince Henry | A public feud between the US president's son and a British prince |
For more, booksellers and reader sites keep long lists by subgenre: contemporary, historical, fantasy and young adult.
What Are the Beats of an Enemies-to-Lovers Arc?
The beats below are the ones the classic examples share. They fit inside any romance structure, from Regis's eight elements to a beat sheet, and they are a check rather than a formula.
- The clash. Show the hostility in action on the page: a snub, a theft, a public defeat. Darcy's "tolerable" does more than a page of description of his pride.
- The reason. Give each of them a reason to oppose the other that they believe is right. This is the external barrier.
- The wound under it. Give each a flaw or belief that the other threatens. This is the internal barrier, and it is what the arc is really about.
- Forced together. A shared goal, a shared enemy or a situation neither can leave puts them side by side.
- The crack. One of them sees the other do something that does not fit the picture: kindness, competence, grief.
- Respect before love. They start to rely on each other. Respect comes first, and attraction grows out of it.
- The old conflict returns. The original reason for the feud comes back, often at the worst moment. It looks as if they were right to hate each other after all.
- The recognition. Each sees their own part in the hostility. Elizabeth's "Till this moment, I never knew myself" is the model.
- The choice. Each acts against the reason they had for opposing the other, and the barrier falls.
Beat 7 is the romance's black moment, the point where the relationship seems lost, and beat 8 is what earns the ending. Both are set out in the wider context of the genre in how to write a romance novel.
How Do You Write Enemies to Lovers?
Make the conflict real
The hostility has to rest on something both characters can defend. A misunderstanding that one honest conversation would clear up makes readers impatient with the couple and with the writer. The strongest reasons are opposed goals, loyalties or values, the kinds of opposition laid out in types of conflict in literature. Elizabeth has a real grievance (Darcy did separate Jane and Bingley), and Darcy has a real one (her family's behaviour). Both are partly wrong, and both are partly right.
Make it personal on both sides
If only one of them dislikes the other, it is a chase, not a feud. Give each lead a stake in the conflict and a reason to dislike the other as a person, not only as a symbol of a side.
Keep the hostility from becoming cruelty
Readers enjoy sharp words and rivalry. They lose sympathy for a lead who humiliates, threatens or harms the other and is never made to answer for it. Let the barbs be clever, and keep real harm for the conflict itself, where it can be faced and put right.
Turn the relationship slowly, and on the page
The most common complaint about enemies-to-lovers books is a turn that happens off-stage: hatred in chapter 10, love in chapter 12, nothing between. Track the shift in small steps (a truce, a favour, a secret shared, a moment of protection) so the reader sees every one. This is a character arc running in two people at once, and each step needs a cause.
Let both of them change
Beatrice and Benedick both give up their pride. Elizabeth and Darcy each correct the other. A book where one lead is "fixed" by the other's patience reads as a reward for bad behaviour rather than a romance.
Make the ending answer the original conflict
The barrier must fall because of who the characters have become, not because the problem goes away. If the feud is between two families, the ending says what happens to the feud. If it is a rivalry for one promotion, someone has to decide what the promotion is worth.
A Worked Example
Here is the plan for an original short romance, The Salt Ledger.
- Leads: Maud Fennick, a customs riding officer on the Cornish coast in 1790, and Kit Rowe, the smuggler whose boats she has sworn to stop.
- The reason: she enforces the law that keeps her post. He runs cargo that keeps the village fed.
- The wound: Maud believes that if she bends once, nobody will take her seriously again. Kit believes officials only ever take from places like his.
- Clash (chapter 1): Maud seizes Kit's cargo on the beach. That night he pays her fine for "disturbing the peace" in front of the whole tavern, to laugh at her.
- Forced together (chapter 4): a gang of wreckers starts showing false lights to drive ships onto the rocks. Maud cannot catch them alone, and Kit's boats are being blamed.
- The crack (chapter 6): in the storm, Maud watches Kit row out three times to pull sailors off a wreck.
- Respect (chapter 9): she finds his ledger. The "contraband" in last month's run was quinine for the fever in the village.
- The old conflict returns (chapter 14): her commanding officer arrests Kit, using a landing place Maud told him about weeks before. Kit believes she sold him.
- Recognition (chapter 16): Maud sees that the rule she would not bend was protecting her pride, not the coast. Kit sees that she risked her post to warn him.
- The choice (chapter 17): Maud gives evidence that clears Kit and names the wreckers. Kit gives up the run and takes the pilot's licence she has put his name forward for.
Each step has a cause the reader sees. The return of the old conflict in chapter 14 comes straight out of chapter 1 (she is still the law), and the ending answers both wounds: Maud bends, and Kit lets an official help him.
How Do You Track an Enemies-to-Lovers Arc in Deckle?
Deckle is a novel-writing app for Windows, macOS and Linux. Its Codex keeps an entry for each character beside the manuscript, and its Timeline lays events out in lanes, one lane per plotline or one per character. Giving the feud and the relationship a lane each shows where the turn happens and whether it happens on the page.
- Open the Codex from its button in the menu bar. Under Characters, click the + (New entry) and choose Character for each lead. In the built-in template, use Motivation & Goals for what each wants that sets them against the other, Flaw / Inner Conflict for the wound, and The Lie They Believe for what they think about the other at the start.
- Open the Timeline from the menu bar and click Add Plotline. Type over the name to call it "The feud". Click the + at the top of the Timeline (Add plotline) for a second lane, "The thaw".
- On each lane, click its + (Add event). In the Inspector, give the event a Title ("Maud seizes the cargo"), set Linked chapter/scene to the chapter where it happens and add the characters in Linked characters/entities. Use Notes for what shifts between them. Click Create Event.
- Link the scenes they share to both leads. Link a private turning point, such as Maud reading the ledger, only to the lead who changes.
- Switch to Story order to see the events in the order the book tells them, a column per chapter. Feud events should thin out as thaw events build. A long run of columns with nothing on "The thaw" is where the turn happens off the page.
- Change Lanes from Plotlines to Characters. Each lead gets a row of their own events. If one row has every turning point and the other has none, only one of them is changing.
- In the Outliner, add labels for the stage of the relationship, such as "Enemies", "Allies" and "Lovers". The pencil beside Status in the Inspector (Edit labels & statuses) opens the Metadata Manager. On its Labels tab, type a name under Add New Label, pick a colour and click Add. Set each scene's Label, switch the Outliner to List View, and read the colours from top to bottom. To read only the "Allies" stretch, pick that label in Filters under All labels.
The book's length shapes how many beats it can hold, and the figures for each kind of romance are on romance novel word count. If you want a contrast for one of the leads, a foil character who shares their situation but chooses differently makes the lead's change easier to see.
Common Mistakes
- A feud built on a misunderstanding. If one conversation would end it, the reader will spend the book wishing someone would have it.
- Only one lead is hostile. That is pursuit. Both need a reason.
- Cruelty passed off as banter. Wit keeps sympathy. Real harm with no reckoning loses it.
- The overnight turn. Hatred to love with no steps between. Put every shift on the page.
- Only one lead changes. Both give something up, or the ending is a reward rather than a resolution.
- Forgetting the original conflict. If the feud is about the family business, the ending says what happens to the business.
- Calling rivals enemies. Rivals to lovers is a lighter promise. Label the book for what it is, so the right readers find it.
FAQ
Q: What does enemies to lovers mean? A: It is a romance trope in which two characters start out opposed, through dislike, rivalry or a real conflict, and end the story in love.
Q: What is the first enemies-to-lovers story? A: There is no agreed first. Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing (first published 1600) are the classic model. Gareth and Lynette from Malory are often named, but in Malory Gareth marries her sister, Dame Lionesse. Tennyson married him to Lynette in 1872.
Q: Is Pride and Prejudice enemies to lovers? A: Yes, it is the best-known example. Darcy snubs Elizabeth at their first meeting, she refuses his first proposal, and both have to see their own faults before they come together.
Q: What is the difference between enemies to lovers and rivals to lovers? A: Enemies oppose each other over something serious, such as a wrong, a feud or opposed loyalties. Rivals compete for the same prize. Rivals only have to stop competing, while enemies have to forgive.
Q: Did Darcy say "You have bewitched me, body and soul"? A: Not in the novel. The line is from the 2005 film. In the book's first proposal Darcy says: "You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." The phrase "most ardently" does not appear in the novel either.
Q: How long should an enemies-to-lovers romance be? A: As long as its subgenre usually runs. The trope needs room for a slow turn, so most enemies-to-lovers novels are full-length romances rather than short stories.
Sources
Retrieved 2 November 2026.
- William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, act 1 scene 1, act 2 scene 3, act 3 scene 1 and act 5 scene 2 (Project Gutenberg); first publication in 1600 from the Folger Shakespeare Library.
- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813), chapters 3, 34, 36 and 60 (Project Gutenberg).
- Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (1855), chapter 24 (Project Gutenberg).
- Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur (1485), Book VII (Project Gutenberg); Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King, "Gareth and Lynette" (Project Gutenberg).
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, act 1 scene 5 (Project Gutenberg).
- Pamela Regis, A Natural History of the Romance Novel (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), read through Open Library's search inside (archive.org).
- Kristina Manente, Origins of Fanfiction Tropes: Enemies to lovers, SYFY Wire, 11 May 2021.
- Nikki DeMarco, Your Guide to the Enemies-to-Lovers Trope in Romance, Book Riot, 16 May 2024.
- Deborah Yaffe, Bewitching, 13 January 2020, on the 2005 film line.
- Book Industry Study Group, BISAC Subject Headings List: Fiction, FIC027570.
- Monthly US search volumes from Google Keyword Planner (English, United States, Google Search), pulled 2 November 2026.