Book Reviews Books

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

A Review by Mina Nguyen

Misery Lark, daughter to the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, has grown up being a collateral between Vampyres and Humans. Instead, she is called in after living among the Humans as an outcast to be wed to the Alpha of the pack, Lowe Moreland, in order to uphold an alliance between the Vampyres and Werewolves. Misery, initially against this idea, realizes the benefit of this marriage after her best friend, Serena, has mysteriously disappeared with the name L.E. Moreland on her calendar, which so happens to be the initials of her future husband. What starts out as this marriage of convenience, turns into something different and foreign to Misery, who realizes that love exists in multiple ways while unraveling the disappearance of her best friend.

Ali Hazelwood has consistently written the same “blueprint” romance with brooding and grumpy male love interests with the sunshine main character- all STEM-based romance.

However, Ali Hazelwood brings something original to what she’s written before. She writes a paranormal romance- not STEM based- with both slightly grumpy and protective characters. Her usage of two characters that have similar traits challenges her to write a different dynamic, which allows her characters interact differently around each other. With her other writing, it was predictable how these characters react to one another, but with Bride, readers don’t know exactly how these two characters from different species with similar traits will react around one another. While it is a bit predictable, as all rom-coms are, it is definitely different from what Hazelwood has produced in the past, which makes it a more interesting read. Additionally, she adds a mystery aspect as a subplot rather than her typical STEM subplot. With Bride, there’s still a lot of romance, but there’s a mystery subplot which keeps readers more engaged. The chemistry between Lowe and Misery is off-the-charts! The tension is great and the personal character development is what makes this book strong. This book started strong and ended strong and leaves room for her to further explore the Omegaverse. While not a fan of this type of genre of book, I still enjoyed it. I’m not a big fan of “mates,” but Hazelwood does a good job of keeping me engaged. The side characters were extremely likable and had nuances that made them memorable. While I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone, this book is geared towards those who have read Hazelwood’s books in the past and want to continue to explore her future works and those who would like a romance-centered read and those who may be interested in reading something from the Omegaverse with werewolves and vampires.