Reviewed by Valerie
TITLE: I’m Not Your Enemy
SERIES: Enemies #2
AUTHOR: Cara Dee
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 214 pages
RELEASE DATE: October 21, 2021
BLURB:
The line between love and hate has never been so thin, and Blake and Sebastian
return in this sequel with bottled-up hurt that somehow just brings them even
closer.
Sebastian was right. I was a coward. I ran my closeted tail all the way back to Georgia. Once I got there, I had no place left to hide. My life imploded. But when I was welcome nowhere, I still had to go somewhere.
I could barely look my sister in the eye, facing Sebastian didn’t even exist on my radar, and I was prepared for my brother-in-law’s protective hostility. I just didn’t have a choice. For once in my life, I wanted redemption. I wanted to belong somewhere, and I was ready to work for it.
Sebastian was the exception—hard no. I might have screwed up royally, but he wasn’t so damn innocent. He’d hurt me too, and he better not push me. In fact, it was best we avoided each other altogether.
So it didn’t make a lick of sense for me to seek him out to provoke a reaction.
REVIEW:
Note: If you haven’t read my review of A New Enemy, you should do that before proceeding.
Sigh. This is a tough one to rate. I liked part two better than part one, and it least it was longer. I call these books parts one and two because they aren’t independent books; the should’ve been combined and sold as one story. Together, they would be a normal length book at 324 pages, and combined, the story would maybe warrant a rating of 4 hearts/stars. But since it’s marketed as two separate books, I have to review and rate it as two separate books. Neither is a complete or satisfying story on its own.
Part one is a single, first-person narration from Sebastian’s POV. Blake’s characterization is shallow. Part two switches to Blake’s POV only, so at least we get to experience his side of the story which was sorely lacking in part one. Unfortunately, I still didn’t become invested in Blake and I never warmed up to his character. The cliffhanger ends up being far less dramatic because the plot didn’t go in the direction that was implied at the end of part one. We do get the romantic aspect that was missing in part one, and the sex and dirty talk are highlights. It’s the secondary cast that once again adds a good bit of enjoyment and depth to the story: Sophia, Dylan, Seb’s brother David, his father, the dogs, and of course, Teddy, who is a delight and definitely the high point of both parts of the book.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but not enough for me to recommend either book, and certainly not enough to warrant the purchase of two books when they should’ve been a single volume. I usually like Cara Dee; this was a disappointment.
RATING: 
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