Recommendation
MM enemies to lovers
Most enemies to lovers books have no enemies in them. Two men are rude to each other for a hundred pages and somebody calls it hate.
The question is whether one of them actually did something. A man who was rude at a wedding isn't an enemy. A man who killed your brother is. That's what the sections sort on.
Updated 29 August 2026
What the hostility actually is
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- Opposite sides of something real. One of them has done something, or they want things that can't both happen, and losing costs something.
- Competing for the same thing. A rivalry with a scoreboard, and the antagonism is professional before it turns personal.
- They just can't stand each other. No stakes beyond the two of them, which is the lightest version and the most common.
- Heat and ending stated plainly for every book. You shouldn't have to find out at chapter twenty.
What the heat ratings mean
The five point scale romance readers already use, lowest to highest. Every book below is marked on it.
- Glimpses and kisses a kiss at most, and no sex on or off the page
- Behind closed doors it happens, but the door shuts first
- Open door at least one scene you are in the room for, written without the explicit words
- Explicit open door two or more scenes, explicit, and a range of things happening
- Explicit and plentiful several explicit scenes spread through the book
Opposite sides of something real
Somebody did something, and it can't be talked away. Hard to write and harder to forgive.
Captive Prince
AboutDamen is heir to the throne of Akielos until his half-brother has him handed to Prince Laurent of Vere as property. Damen killed Laurent's brother in battle. Laurent has no idea who he has been given, and Damen can't tell him without dying for it.
Read it ifYou want the enmity to be earned rather than asserted, and you can take a first book that spends its length with the two of them wanting each other dead.
DifferentThe hate is a fact rather than a feeling. Damen killed his brother and that doesn't stop being true because they end up wanting each other. He spends the whole book as property and the first act is violent, so read the content notes before you start.
SettingAkielos and Vere, a secondary world
HeatOpen door - 3 of 5 on romance.io
EndingNone in book one, which stops at a truce.
SeriesFirst of three. Book two rates 4.37 from 97,284 ratings, well above this one, which is the shape of a trilogy people finish.
Rating3.78 on Goodreads, from 132,182 ratings
Fun factPacat is Australian, born and writing in Melbourne.
God of Fury
AboutNikolai Sokolov is a mafia heir and by his own account a violent one. Brandon King is British, a quiet artist, and the twin brother of Nikolai's enemy. Nikolai decides to have him anyway. What he wants is Brandon's control, which is the only thing Brandon really has, and he sets about taking it apart.
Read it ifYou want it dark, you want the mafia one, and you want a man who won't take no for an answer to be the point rather than a flaw.
DifferentDark romance, so the pursuit is relentless and the book knows it.
SettingAn American college, and the New York family behind one of them
HeatExplicit and plentiful - 5 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA.
SeriesFifth of six Legacy of Gods books. The cast arrives already established, so starting here means picking up families you're expected to know.
Rating4.49 on Goodreads, from 186,326 ratings
Fun factKent writes mostly MF and this is the MM one. It has 186,000 ratings while sitting fifth in a series.
Competing for the same thing
A scoreboard, a promotion, a job. The antagonism is professional first, which is what makes it survivable.
Heated Rivalry
AboutShane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are the two best players of their generation and the press has spent years selling them against each other. What actually happens between them starts at nineteen and carries on for most of a decade, in hotel rooms, with nobody told.
Read it ifYou want the one everybody means when they say this trope, and you want years rather than weeks.
DifferentThe rivalry is real but it isn't the obstacle. The obstacle is that both careers depend on nobody finding out, which turns a decade of snatched days into the actual plot.
SettingThe NHL, and hotel rooms in whichever city they're both in
HeatExplicit and plentiful - 5 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA. The epilogue jumps a year on: Shane comes out to his best friend, Ilya signs with Ottawa to be near him, and the two of them set up a charity together.
SeriesSecond of seven Game Changers books, and it reads alone. The Long Game carries Shane and Ilya further, and Role Model is the fifth.
Rating4.25 on Goodreads, from 456,733 ratings
Fun factAdapted for television by HBO Max and Crave, which is why the current cover carries a streaming badge.
Past the Whistle
AboutAlex Carter is American, Daniel Morgan is Australian, and the hold that ended their first match ran twenty-eight seconds longer than it needed to. Neither of them says anything about it. Then a league puts them in the same draw, city after city, with the cameras running.
Read it ifYou want the standoff to last, and you've been let down before by a rivalry that folded in three chapters.
DifferentThey give in physically a good while before either of them says a word about it, so if you need the feelings to keep pace with the heat this will frustrate you. Both closeted, both travelling, and Daniel doesn't explain himself to anyone.
SettingProfessional and Olympic circuit, and home in Australia
HeatExplicit and plentiful
EndingHFN. They're settled by the end, the distance and the logistics are not
SeriesBook one of a forthcoming series.
OutLate 2026, preorder open
Untitled television novel
Not written yet
Untitled television novel
AboutTwo actors on the same show can't stand each other. Then the writers put their characters together, and the promotion to the main cast comes with playing it properly, on camera, for as long as the storyline runs.
DifferentThe job does the forcing. Neither of them can walk away without losing the part, so the intimacy is scheduled, rehearsed and watched by forty people. Both have built a career on being the other sort of man.
SettingA television set, and a storyline neither of them asked for
HeatExplicit and plentiful
Top Secret
AboutKeaton Hayworth has money, a girlfriend and a father who expects him in the family pharmaceutical business. Luke Bailey is there on a scholarship that covers tuition and nothing else, so he works to make rent. The two of them can't stand each other in person and have been talking anonymously online for months.
Read it ifYou want to watch two people be kind to each other in writing and vile in the corridor.
DifferentThe gap between them is money, and the book keeps it in view rather than letting the romance dissolve it. Both are working out what they want while it happens rather than arriving certain.
SettingA New England college, and an anonymous hookup app
HeatExplicit open door - 4 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA.
SeriesStandalone.
Rating4.05 on Goodreads, from 47,219 ratings
Fun factBowen and Kennedy wrote it together, and it runs on the same idea as The Shop Around the Corner, which is also You've Got Mail.
Face Offs & Cheap Shots
AboutChristopher Jacobs has hated TJ Beckett since freshman year. Jacobs works to keep the scholarship that pays for him. Beck does the minimum, on money that would get him out of any trouble. The coaches won't choose between them for captain, so the team votes.
Read it ifYou want the low angst version, and you want the whole thing to be funny.
DifferentLow angst, so the loathing is loud and nothing terrible happens. Underneath it the difference is money, which the book notices without making a meal of it.
SettingCollege ice hockey, and a team that has to put up with both of them
HeatExplicit and plentiful - 5 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA.
SeriesSecond of five CU Hockey books, and it reads alone.
Rating4.16 on Goodreads, from 24,365 ratings
Fun factBoth authors are Australian, which you'd never guess from a book set in American college hockey.
They just can't stand each other
No war, no scoreboard, just two men who rub each other raw. This is where most of the shelf lives.
Red, White & Royal Blue
AboutAlex Claremont-Diaz is the son of the American president. Prince Henry is third in line to the British throne. They have loathed each other for years, and after they knock over a wedding cake in front of the world their governments order them to fake a friendship for the cameras.
Read it ifYou want the one everyone has read, and you want it funny before it gets serious.
DifferentThe hatred is entirely personal and entirely made up, which the book is honest about: they were never enemies, they were two people who got each other wrong at eighteen. What's real is what happens once they get caught.
SettingThe White House, Kensington Palace, and the press between them
HeatOpen door - 3 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA.
SeriesStandalone.
Rating4.04 on Goodreads, from 1,278,174 ratings
Fun factMcQuiston's first novel, and Amazon filmed it in 2023.
Cut & Run
AboutTy Grady came out of the Marines and into the Bureau, cocky, abrasive and the best they have. Zane Garrett is precise and sober. He had to become both after his wife was killed in a car accident and he went into drink and drugs behind it. The Bureau puts them on a string of murders in New York and it's hate on sight.
Read it ifYou want the case to matter as much as the men, and you want a rivalry that stays prickly for a very long time.
DifferentA crime novel first, with the romance underneath it, so the murders get real page time.
SettingNew York, and a string of murders the Bureau puts two strangers on
HeatExplicit open door - 4 of 5 on romance.io
EndingThe case closes. Ty and Zane don't.
SeriesFirst of nine. Ty and Zane don't fall in love until the fourth, Divide & Conquer.
Rating3.99 on Goodreads, from 28,401 ratings
Fun factFrom 2008, and it ran to nine books.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between enemies to lovers and rivals to lovers?
Whether anybody actually did anything. Rivals want the same thing and get in each other's way. Enemies have a reason, and usually somebody has to be forgiven before the book can end. Most of what gets sold under the first name is the second, which is the single most common complaint readers have about the trope.
Is The Foxhole Court an enemies to lovers romance?
Not in book one. It turns up near the top of every list for this trope on the strength of Neil and Andrew, and that relationship develops across the later volumes rather than this one. Book one is a sports novel about a team, with the two of them circling. Boyfriend Material gets shelved here too and it's fake dating with a trace of this in it.
Which MM enemies to lovers should I read first?
Heated Rivalry if you want the one everybody means. Red, White & Royal Blue if you want it funny and you don't mind that they were never really enemies. Captive Prince if you want the hate to have a body behind it. Cut & Run if you want a murder case with it.
Are they all explicit?
No, and this is the one trope on the site where heat genuinely varies. It runs from open door at three out of five up to five, and it tracks the sections: the further the book sits from real stakes, the less explicit it tends to be.