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Thank you to Berkley Romance and PRH Audio for my review copies! 

Bride
By Ali Hazelwood
🎧 Narrated by: Therese Plummer
Book 9 of 2024

I love Ali Hazelwood, and was super curious about what I was getting myself into with this vampyre & werewolf arranged marriage romance. It is somehow so quintessentially Ali Hazelwood though.

If you haven’t dipped your toe far into the paranormal romance scene, this is a great place to start. The worldbuilding is basically just our world but vampyres and werewolves. Our female MC, Misery, introduces you quickly to what you need to know about vampyres, but she has spent most of her time with humans and doesn’t know a ton about them herself. 

I always fall in love with Hazelwood’s whole cast of characters – and they were extra fun as paranormal creatures. 

The book does start with us finding out that Misery’s best friend and roommate has gone missing. I feel like this mystery element was balanced pretty well, while also giving us the paranormal worldbuilding and the romance! 

The 3rd Act conflict was stupid but needed to exist, and the end was very satisfying. 

🎧 Therese Plummer also narrated Love on the Brain, and her voice fits so well with Ali Hazelwood’s writing. 

PS – Don’t worry, Misery is very knowledgable in computer science (and hacking), so we still have a STEM FMC. 

PPS – I know I had a complete meltdown in my stories about a joke centered around a child doing things that developmentally were weird for her age. And I stand by that being a stupid joke, but overall I enjoyed the book. 

[ book 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.

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.