Paranormal romances are so rarely my jam these days, having read little else during my twenties and thirties, but Ali Hazelwood’s brand of sharp-witted, lovelorn shenanigans is always hard to resist, even more so when her new marriage of convenience romp happens to be of the blood-sucking and howling variety. She takes the star-crossed lovers, fated mates tropes to new heights in this spicy, unputdownable tale of two mortal enemies who agree to marry in order to uphold the peace between their species. I loved the story, the characters, the dialogues, even all the drawn-out miscommunication angst, but Ali Hazelwood had me at knotting, and I’m (k)not embarrassed to admit it. (K)not even a little.

Misery Lark has always known that her life would never truly be her own to live. As the only daughter of a powerful Vampyre councilman, she spent most of her young life being a mere pawn in her father’s political game of chess, and now, at twenty-five years of age, she is to marry the dangerous Alpha of the Southwest pack, as part of a peacekeeping treaty between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses, the Weres. But what no one knows is that Misery has an ulterior motive to marry the Alpha—her best friend is missing and the only clue to her disappearance leads to wolf territory...

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I received a free digital copy of Bride by Ali Hazelwood to read. I read it two days. It reminded me some of Chloe Neill's Chicago vampire series and of Patricia Brigg's Mercy Thompson series. Misery was always being pawned off for alliances since she was 8. She is a snarky vampire who never fits in. She agrees to marry a werewolf, Lowe to find her childhood friend, Serena. Over the course of the time in werewolf country, she realizes she is actually cares about people. Lowe has a little sister who is also the star of the book. I liked the strength and determination of all main characters. The epilogue set us up for another book in this world. I would recommend this to anyone who likes paranormal romance. It does have sex but the scenes are not dragged out for pages. I would read the next book in this world to see where Ali develops this world

This book was everything!! I have always loved a good vampire or werewolf romance but to have them combined was amazing. I loved misery and Lowe and their chemistry. I loved how loyal protective and caring Lowe was. This was a slow burn romance but was steamy.I also loved the humor in this book and the interaction between the werewolves with Misery. I loved the banter between Misery and Lowe and how she makes fun of him for not knowing how to use the internet lol. I also loved all the characters in the book and can’t wait to see if there will be more books in this universe.

ok so i never had a vampire and warewolf book era when i was younger, but here i am having that era in my mid-twenties. bride was such a good story and had me in knots (if you know, you know)

Misery is the daughter of one of the most powerful vampyres, and unfortunately, she is often used as a tribute to help protect the vampyre community. Only this time, she is being married off to the werewolf alpha as a way to keep the peace. This marriage is forced but Misery is willing to stay in it to help her human friend, the one person in the world she loves. She and Lowe, her werewolf husband ultimately team up to find her missing friend.

I haven’t read a vampyre/werewolf romance since Twilight so this was wayyyyy out of my comfort zone. Since I love Ali Hazelwood and since so many friends loved this book, I went for it, and I was very pleasantly surprised. This book is totally different from the women in STEM romances Ali has previously written, but it still has her signature steam and witty banter. Like I said, I wasn’t sure what to expect since this is very far from my normal read, but after seeing so many rave reviews, I was influenced. I was happy to say it lived up to the hype - there was chemistry, steam, a little mystery, and a lot of fun!

I ended up listening to most of this and loved the audiobook narrated by Therese Plummer and Will Damron. I found myself wanting to keep listening, and completely lost in the story.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for the advance copy.

I don't typically gravitate to paranormal romances, but Ali Hazelwood has me convinced! I would love a sequel in this universe. I was really into the world building and politics that Misery and Lowe are caught up in. It made an interesting backdrop to the forced marraige of the pair.

did i have to google knotting? yes! did ali hazelwood knock this omegaverse romance with a werewolf leader and vampire princess out of the freaking park? yes! alexa, play the twilight soundtrack!!

Rating: 4.5 ⭐ / 1 🌶️

"Isn't that what any relationship is in the end? Meeting someone and wanting to be with that person more than with anyone else, and trying to make it work?"

Growing up as collateral in the human territory, vampyre Misery Lark has never felt like she has had a place in this world. Not among the humans or vampyres, and definitely not among the werewolves. But when her best friend and foster sister, Serena, goes missing and the werewolves' alpha is the only clue left behind, Misery agrees to her fathers political scheming and an arranged marriage. After all, what's this marriage but another form of her playing collateral once again? Now she just needs to bide her time and use her hacking skills to find out what happened to Serena. That's if she can stay alive long enough... Misery never expected for the werewolf alpha to be so intriguing though, or for her marriage to him to feel like coming home...

I was so excited to receive an ARC of Ali Hazelwood’s BRIDE from Berkley! Paranormal romance was my first love with reading and it was such a treat to return to that world with this fun and humorous author! The first half of Bride did move slowly, there was a lot of building of the world around them as well as the character's backstories. However, the classic Ali Hazelwood humor and characters was in full force throughout so that I loved every minute of this tale. It was brimming with mystery and suspense, as well as lough out loud moments. I really enjoyed Lowe's POV as the chapter headers as well. I never 100% understood Lowes reluctance to keep his feelings in the dark but I guess that would have been a short book otherwise. I can't wait to see what this author does next in this sub genre! With hints at a sequel I will be keeping my eyes out for more!
"She's not like he imagined. She's more, in every possible way."

✔️ Arranged Marriage
✔️Forced Proximity
✔️ Emotionally Stunted FMC
✔️Political Machinations
✔️Vampires X Weres X Humans
✔️ Knotting
✔️ Loyal BFF's
✔️ Found Family
✔️ Omegaverse
✔️ Slow-Burn
✔️ Little Sister + Cat
✔️ Twilight Vibes
✔️ He Falls First
✔️ Fated Mates
✔️ Enemies to Lovers

Ali Hazelwood, you had me at this being a paranormal romance between a vampire bride and an alpha wolf⁣. Taking me back to my Twilight loving days - 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐞 is the Vampyre/Werewolf romance you need in your life! I loved it. Filled with interspecies politics, enemies to lovers/forbidden love, fated mates, action, betrayal, mystery, tension, chemistry and steam (hello knot - iykyk).
⁣
Did my werewolf/vampire loving self absolutely adore this? Yes, yes I did! Do I need more of this world and these characters in my life - also yes!

Screaming, crying, throwing up. This book had me in an absolute CHOKEHOLD. Ali has never failed me, but this book was on another level. I loved every single second of it and am crossing my fingers for a sequel!!!!

This book was so good! I loved the world building for vampires and werewolves. I also thought this had a really good plot and I liked that it focused on not just the couple, but some issues they were facing because they were from different groups. I also really liked the main female and male main characters. On their own they were both great, but together I absolutely loved them. Also shoutout to their amazing siblings as well who were such an enjoyable part of the book. Overall I really enjoyed this one! Also the spice was well placed to create tension and was well done in general.

This was a quick, enjoyable read! As usual, I love everything Ali Hazelwood puts out. The world building was pretty unique and a big selling point for me.

Misery is used to being a pawn as the daughter of a Vampyre councilman but she has tried to carve out her own life and work among humans. However, she ends up agreeing to a marriage alliance with the Weres in order to find out more about her missing human roommate, Serena. While Were Lowe tries to keep his distance from Misery, it's clear they're both attracted to each other and Misery winds up helping them foil a plot among the Weres and the Vampyres. Overall, a solid romance with paranormal elements. One thing Hazelwood does well is making her characters capable and skilled and not relying on others, even if miscommunication always seems to inevitably happen along with assuming what the other characters think. Readers who like Twilight, Teen Wolf, or fanfiction will enjoy this one.

Romance author Ali Hazelwood is primarily known for megapopular STEMinist romances like Love on the Brain and Love, Theoretically, contemporary love stories which feature delightfully nerdy heroines set in traditionally male-dominated professional fields like science, technology, and math. But recently, Hazelwood has been expanding her horizons a bit as a writer, releasing the charming YA novel Check & Mate in late 2023. Though it’s set in a male-dominated world (competitive chess), it’s as much a coming-of-age tale as it is a romance, featuring complex family dynamics and realistic middle-class problems alongside its rivals-to-lovers story. Now Hazelwood is dipping her proverbial pen into the world of paranormal romance with Bride, a delightful and unexpected swerve that more than proves this author is no one trick pony.

A genuine swerve from the recognizable formula that’s made her famous, Bride allows Hazelwood to indulge in an entirely new kind of story, embracing new tropes while building out a fictional world with its own rules and politics (both interspecies and otherwise). If you read any supernatural or paranormal romance, many of the story beats will be familiar to you—-well-known tropes are well-known for a reason after all—but interlaced with Hazelwood’s trademark humor and character banter, this is a delightful escape from start to finish.

I tried, but this book was definitely not for me. I DNF’d it at about 36%, although I skimmed a bunch of the rest of the book to see how it would end (and yes, I found the “knot” sections). I was bored, honestly, and could not get into the story or its main characters at all. The world-building was vague and odd. This was my first book by Ali Hazelwood and, while I know this is her first paranormal romance, it does make me hesitant to try another of her books.

Thank you to Berkley for the gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

It was so refreshing to read something new from Ali Hazelwood! I thoroughly enjoyed every single chapter and I'm looking forward to her other books if it means that she'll write more of this <3

I am honestly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. I've only read one other book by Ali Hazelwood (The Love Hypothesis), and I am not well-versed in the paranormal genre. In recent years, there have only been a handful of books I've read that could be classified as paranormal – I might average 1-2 paranormal-esque books a year.

So, I wasn't quite sure what to expect going into this one. I recently read another paranormal shifter romance (The Fake Mate by Lana Ferguson), which I enjoyed just fine, and since I had overall lukewarm feelings about Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis, I wasn't really expecting to be blown out of the water with Bride.

And while my mind wasn't blown, I thoroughly enjoyed this read! The political plot between the Vampyres, Werewolves, and Humans got a little dense and murky a few times, but I liked the dynamics and intrigue it added to the romance plot between Misery and Lowe.

I listened to it via audiobook, and the changing points of view and timelines were extremely confusing at first – particularly at the beginning since many sections are so short and it jumps around several times: Misery in the present, Lowe in the past, Misery in the past, Lowe in the present, Misery in the present. So I did reference my physical copy to see just what the heck was going on, and that helped a ton. But once it got past that first section of jumping around, it was easy to follow.

I do have a beef that there are two characters with extremely similar-sounding names: Owen and Koen. I got confused a bit when I thought the narrator said one name when it was really the other and vice-versa. Obviously, if you are reading the book, that won't be a problem for you.

It was sweet how Misery and Lowe tried not to like each other because their species historically were basically enemies, but they just couldn't help themselves. I appreciated how forthcoming Misery was in her thoughts and feelings, and didn't really hide much from Lowe. Lowe on the other hand, yes he was open but there was that ONE BIG THING that he kept hidden from her and even lied about at one point. Which I still don't quite understand why he outright lied that one time, but hey, that's romance novels for you I guess. Gotta have that third-act conflict/break-up.

Overall, a fun read! It ends in a way that leads one to believe this will become a stand-alone series, so I'm intrigued and excited to see what comes next.

What do you get when you take a fanfic author who also happens to be a neuroscience professor and add vampires and werewolves? You get the epically fun, laugh out loud, genius twist to the whole preternatural genre book Bride!

I cannot stop saying how much I adore this book of Ali's, and not just because I'm a lifelong lover of the spooky and spoopier side of things. Bride, in my opinion, is Ali's best novel yet. Her switch of genres didn't seem to slow her down at all; in fact, I think the switch was a fantastic choice and chance she took.

Misery has got to be my favorite female character so far. Her inner monologue had me cracking up at the desk at work - which is awkward because I work with the public. (sorry, not sorry) Did I also find that Misery had a tendency to be the most oblivious person in the world sometimes? Yes, but you know what, same girl, same.

As a person who has been active in the fanfic world for entirely too long to say, I was (k)not one of the bajillions who were blindsided or bamboozled by that addition to Lowe's anatomy. That being said, oh boy howdy did Ali bring some good spice to Bride. <3 Is it the spiciest thing I've ever read? Nope; but it is very, very well written and once you accept the (k)notty bits into your life, you'll find that everything will be just fine.

This world is now my obsession, and I NEED to know more about it! Please, please, please make this a series!!

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley for the eARC, even though I was a bit slow to get it read.

Something different from an author I really enjoy. Hazelwood's take on vampire and werewolf mythology feels unique, or at the least fresh. The societal conflict between the two groups, layered behind a marriage-of-convenience/allyship romance, makes for a good level of sexual tension.

Review 4.75 ⭐️
YES, YES, YES. Ali Hazelwood has won me back with this monster romance. After reading Love on the Brain, I was a little less than impressed because I felt that it was basically The Love Hypothesis all over again. However, I feel Hazelwood has found her stride and this is what she needs to be writing from now on (I mean, can we get a sequel with Serena and Koen). This was such a fun read and I enjoyed almost every minute of it. I loved the marriage of convenience aspect between a vampyre and werewolf. It’s no surprise that vampyres and werewolves are supposed to be enemies, so this had some elements of “enemies to lovers.” Learning about this paranormal world was fun but I do wish it had a little bit more world building, we really only got that the humans, vampyres, and werewolves stay in their designated regions and are “okay” with one another but mostly keep to themselves. This was definitely a slow burn, which you would expect in a marriage of convenience. *SLIGHT SPOILER* When the mention of werewolves having mates, I pretty much guessed which way it was going to go, but it didn’t ruin it for me. It made me want to keep reading and find out what happened. This is what Ali Hazelwood needs to write and I want more monster romance from her in the future!