Bride by Ali Hazelwood
SYNOPSIS
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.
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This supernatural marriage of convenience brought back all the nostalgia of those early Twilight days when we couldn’t get enough vampires and werewolves to satiate the craving.
Ali Hazelwood has been the author of the month for me in February, I’ve been flying through her new releases and Bride was a fascinating divergence from her usual contemporary romances. I’ve read Hazelwood’s fanfic before so I’m not new to her fantasy elements in stories but seeing a brand new, original fantasy world in her published works felt strange and I’m still not completely sure how I felt about it. Especially bringing a pretty niche, fanfic subject to the mainstream. I also felt, given the premise of warring clans and species there was a lot of opportunity in this book for some better world building and a more tension filled romance that was lost given it was such a short one-off book.
We follow only Misery’s (our main character) point of view but we do get small snippets of Lowe in the chapter headers. Misery has lead a fairly bland life, constantly misplaced, neither belonging to humans due to her vampiric nature, nor to the vampyres because of her years living as a hostage of the humans. She’s once again asked to sacrifice her freedom to protect her people and stop the warring between their species by marrying the alpha of the Weres. Misery has only cared about one other person in her life, and that person has gone missing. Her only lead? The man she’s about to marry. Lowe has taken on the responsibility of pack leader and given up his dreams and his old life in order to try and bring peace and a better life, not only to his people, but to his family as well. Misery and Lowe bond over their shared morals and their search for Misery’s missing friend who seems to be tied more into pack politics than Misery could have ever imagined.
Misery felt like an undeveloped main character in comparison to some of Hazelwood’s other works. We got her backstory but I feel like we missed out on a lot of her personality. I sympathized with her, but I found it difficult to relate to her. I did enjoy her sneakiness, it was the most entertaining thing about her. I love that she was resourceful and not really a damsel in distress, yet neither was she a hardened bitch. She took no shit but she also had a kind heart, whether or not she wanted to admit that. Lowe was such a great character (minus the buzz cut because wtf was that?). His self-sacrificing typically would be an annoyance for me but somehow it suited his character very well. He was a great balance to Misery’s unstable life. But the real show stealer was Ana. Ana is Lowe’s little sister and one of the main reasons Misery manages to open up so much to her own feelings. Ana was an absolute delight to get to meet in this book and I honestly think a lot more romances could do with the help of innocent yet observant children whose commentary on what they see leaves ZERO room for the miscommunication trope.
There was a decent amount of world building in this book since it was the first Hazelwood novel where we aren’t in our world, I was impressed. There were deep dynamics into the different species and their histories with each other and hierarchies. But I felt we could have delved deeper into the world itself and how it looked. We get mentions of there being other packs and of other regions of the world not having the same animosity as where our characters live, but I would have loved a deeper look at that. Why was this city so special in it’s violent history? If things were so bad there, why didn’t different packs and clans move elsewhere? When exactly did vamps and weres make their presence known to humans and integrate into their lives? I think this kind of info could have built a far richer world and turned this from a standalone into a series. I do understand this being a one novel deal was a big holdback to that world building, so I won’t hold it against the book itself.
My absolute favourite part of this book was the mystery aspect. It was such a fun way to keep the plot moving forward with higher stakes. The relationship itself was a slowburn but it burned quite healthily so the side mystery was a great way to keep tension and suspense throughout the novel. I also loved how well everything in the mystery connected together. It wasn’t a big who dunnit surprise like in an actual thriller but I was pleased with the entire journey and felt the main characters’ amateur sleuthing to be pretty realistic.
This was a 4 star read for me. I always enjoy Hazelwood’s works and though this book wasn’t my favourite of her works, it was still a really enjoyable read and a fun insight into what she can be capable of outside of the contemporary romance genre. I look forward to more books like this from her in the future.