BOOKS | Review: Bride by Ali Hazelwood

Name: Bride (Bride #1)

Author: Ali Hazelwood

Publisher: Sphere

Date published: February 2024

Genre: Fiction, adult, romance, fantasy, paranormal 

Pages: 399

Rating: 3/5

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 an historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and 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.

- Goodreads.

This was quite a fun book, it was easy to read and the writing style was enjoyable with a likeable narrative voice and an entertaining sense of humour.

I don't read a lot of paranormal stories or stories that are fantasy but set in a contemporary setting, but I enjoyed the premise of this story and it was interesting to learn about the world and discover the interactions between humans, vampires and werewolves and how the politics between them worked.

I think there were a lot of interesting characters, and I enjoyed the tension between Misery and Lowe. I think the author did a good job of creating the chemistry between them and the moments of them getting to know each other and opening up and becoming vulnerable were quite sweet, I think the only problem I had was that sometimes they assumed a lot or were quite stubborn about believing something when the truth seemed pretty obvious, at least from a reader's persepective, and occasionally I didn't understand their motivation and why they did some things, but mostly they did explain why a character might feel a certain way or why they might take a certain action, even if it could be frustrating.

I think it would depend on the storyline of what happened next, but I would consider reading sequels to this book, and since I enjoyed her writing style I would read one of Ali Hazelwood's other books to see if I enjoyed something she wrote set in another world or genre. This one was a lot of fun, it was just understanding the characters at some points that was the main problem for me.