Rating: 4 stars

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 from the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis.

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 she has been called upon to uphold an historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and 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.

As I’ve never read a book by Ali Hazelwood before, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Bride. However, I enjoyed reading this book immensely. I enjoyed learning about the world surrounding the characters in the story, especially learning about the dynamics between vampyres and werewolves. It was interesting to see how they would initially interact with each other. I also enjoyed this aspect of the story because I love reading fantasy. It’s one of my favorite genres to read because I enjoy getting to learn more about the world the characters live in and seeing stories told from the perspective of supernatural characters.    

I also enjoyed the overall plot surrounding Misery’s attempts at finding her missing best friend Serena. I found myself sympathizing with her as I wanted her to find her best friend and loved seeing her and Lowe work together to learn more about what was going on. What I also enjoyed about the plot was seeing the dynamics between Lowe and the other werewolves who were in his pack. It was interesting to see how werewolves function in this world, and I loved seeing Lowe explaining things to Misery so that she could understand what was going on.

If there was one aspect of  Bride that didn’t work as well for me, it was the relationship between Misery and Lowe. Werewolves and vampyres are described as being enemies in this book, yet I didn’t feel like Misery’s experience with the werewolves in Lowe’s pack was all that terrible. Even Lowe didn’t treat her all that terribly like I was expecting once they were married. So this book being described as enemies to lovers didn’t feel accurate to me because these two didn’t act like enemies to me at all. Also, while I enjoy Misery and Lowe’s characters, their romance in this book sometimes felt awkward to me. Not with every interaction, but anytime the two of them were being intimate with each other, it felt extremely awkward to read. That’s not to say I didn’t feel a connection between them or anything, but I felt like it was rushed with no time for either of them to truly get to know each other enough to get through the awkwardness that I sensed in their relationship.

Overall though, Bride was enjoyable to read. I enjoyed the story and found myself continuing to read to find out what happened next, enjoying the characters and the world they live in and learning more about the supernatural characters that made up this world. I just wish the story had fully delivered on the enemies-to-lovers premise and that the intimacy between Lowe and Misery wasn’t so awkward to read.