Bride

Ali Hazelwood

Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Release date: February 6th, 2024

SYNOPSIS:

A dangerous alliance between a Vampyre bride and an Alpha Werewolf becomes a love deep enough to sink your teeth into in this new paranormal romance from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love, Theoretically and The Love Hypothesis.

Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is an outcast—again. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over: she has been called upon to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and she sees little choice but to surrender herself in the exchange—again…

Weres are ruthless and unpredictable, and their Alpha, Lowe Moreland, is no exception. He rules his pack with absolute authority, but not without justice. And, unlike the Vampyre Council, not without feeling. It’s clear from the way he tracks Misery’s every movement that he doesn’t trust her. If only he knew how right he was….

Because Misery has her own reasons to agree to this marriage of convenience, reasons that have nothing to do with politics or alliances, and everything to do with the only thing she’s ever cared about. And she is willing to do whatever it takes to get back what’s hers, even if it means a life alone in Were territory…alone with the wolf.

REVIEW:

Even though I have another Hazelwood book on my shelves this is actually the first one that I have read. A complete impulse buy and I honestly can’t say that I’m disappointed. Sure it isn’t on the same scale as some supernatural fantasy/supernatural romantasy books that I’ve read but I actually didn’t have an issue with the way the author explained the “lack of magic” element. While I don’t think I’ll ever truly seek out romance books Bride was an exception to that rule, just like Butcher & Blackbird. I’ll take a little suspended belief propped up by snark, banter, and steam. This book was a great time, I devoured it, and it was like junk food for my brain.

She is resilient. He tries to imagine how he’d feel if he were in her position – alone, removed, used, and discarded. He has nothing but reluctant respect for her, and that angers him.

I enjoyed Misery & Lowe but where they both really glowed to me was their interactions with Ana. I loved how Hazelwood depicted Ana and that Ana refused (either out of sheer stubbornness or how little kids really can’t pronounce certain things) to call Misery anything other than Miresy. Some other things that I loved were: he falls first and HARD, the witty banter (between all but especially Misery, Lowe, and Ana), the spicy scenes (of course), enemies to lovers, marriage of political alliance, and a different take on fated mates. A couple of things I didn’t like: the third act breakup similar to Twilight‘s Edward & Bella (the purpose it served was pretty shaky) and the knot… iykyk.

As the book came to a close, I am dearly hoping that what happened is really an opening for a second book. It would also be interesting for Misery & Lowe to visit the other countries that don’t have such clear division or see the progress that they’re hoping to reach between Lowe, the human governor, and Owen.