Bride Book Review

 Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

  “This sounds foreign, like picking words at random. Magnetic fridge poetry”

Bride by Ali Hazelwood is vampire/werewolf paranormal romance. Vampire, Misery Lark accepts a marriage proposal that would be a union between the Vampire and Werewolf civilizations and leave her eternally bound with the Alpha, Lowe Moreland. What starts as a marriage of circumstance becomes more after they both develop feelings and start to see each other as more than how they perceived the other person.  

 

I didn’t really know too much about this book aside from the fact that it was pretty popular…and had a nice cover. I haven’t really been enjoying the books that I’ve been reading recently. Bride helped me get out of my reading slump and enjoy reading again. Part of the reason for this could have been that it gave me serious Twilight (by Stephanie Meyers, of course) vibes but it was in the best way. While it being a romance first and foremost, Ali Hazelwood included a mystery to help progress the story. The mystery aspect helped me stay even more invested in the story since the book became more than just wondering how these two characters from completely different lifestyles would ever fall in love, much less stay together in order to keep the peace of the world. A peace that is so fragile, a marriage is the only way it can be healed. Even that is an iffy circumstance since it could end with the resurgence of a feud between the two species that hasn’t quite died down and resulted in bloodshed the last time such a union was attempted.

 

While there are plenty of vampire/werewolf romance stories, Hazelwood built the world in Bride in a new way. It strayed from the basic concept of werewolves change when the moon is full and vampires feed on humans in ways that still worked. Hazelwood has written a world I could imagine myself living in and characters I wouldn’t mind meeting…for the most part. I haven’t read any of her books before but Bride has given me a bit of an insight into her style of writing, and I could see reading more of what she’s written.

 

I greatly enjoyed Bride. However, there were some parts that I found not so enjoyable. Misery was not a character I would want to be around for long periods of time. She always seemed to be putting herself in the role of victim. Her constant “self sacrifice” felt less meaningful when she seemed to present it as a choice she was forced into. There were a lot of assumptions made in Lowe’s and Misery’s relationship that could have been solved with a conversation. Which a married couple should be having. I get that drama is entertaining. It’s just a thing that at times makes decent characters seem like less than what they’re meant to be.

 

Since this is a romance book, especially since this is an adult romance book, some things are to be expected. I don’t read werewolf romance often since the sex scenes are something I’m knot really a fan of. (ha ha) However, Misery and Lowe do get married so it was, unfortunately for me, something unsurprising. I was reminded of Twilight while reading this book, but I wouldn’t recommend or give this book to someone under the age of 18. I had a difficult time passing this book onto my sister who had asked to read it next and she’s in her 20s!

 

I checked Bride out from my local library.