Ali Hazelwood writes almost exclusively about women in STEM finding romance, yet I, a woman in STEM who has yet to find romance, rated her Vampire x Werewolf steamy romance higher than any of those. I don't know what I can say for myself.
★★★★☆
When I finished Bride, I felt like it was a solid paranormal romance story. As the hours ticked on though, my brain would be like "let's go read our book" and then I would feel disappointed that I had actually finished said book. My enjoyment and excitement to read was higher than I even realized as I was reading it. So let's break that down.
*Spoilers ahead*
Firstly, I am a huge fan of soft fantasy/paranormal worlds. This book is set in the real world, containing all our normal geography and cities, but it also happens to have vampyres and werewolves who live in their own territories in this world. It gave me the same vibe as the Dark Olympus series (which I still can't really tell if it's supposed to take place on modern Earth or not). This one was very clear-cut: it's our world, but with a few additions. While doubtless some people find it lazy, I personally love this kind of fantasy world and I wish more paranormal and fantasy books would do it this way.* It saves the author the hassle of intensive world building and the reader the hassle of understanding said created world. The atmosphere and world were already to my taste.
The characters grew on me throughout the novel. At first I was put off by Misery being Ali's typical witty Mary Sue type, but I actually found I liked it in the context of such serious and at times morose surroundings. I find myself again wishing we got a dual perspective because I feel like we would have gotten so much more out of Lowe if we had gotten more of him besides a sentence or two at the beginning of each chapter. Other than our two MCs, I was fond of a lot of the characters. I loved seeing how Owen grew through the book; you could tell his personality was limited and then improved by Misery's increasing estimation of him. I quite liked the dynamic between Misery and Ana and between Misery and Alex. I will say it was easy to tell that Mick was the traitor (due to the vampyres having his son). He was just too nice to not have a betrayal arc. However, there was a different, better twist, so I was fine with this one being predictable. Overall I liked the MCs and the side characters and their interactions; if we get a sequel I hope we get to see some of those relationships grow.
The romance was not particularly original if you're familiar with Ali's work--it repeats several tropes that are present in all three of her other major works. The most notable are the FMC hinting that she thinks she's asexual until she meets "him" (such a harmful way of thinking to spread to people), and the FMC and MMC going on a trip together (in every other novel is was some science conference; in this one it was the meeting with Emery). Overall I still have to say I enjoyed the romance because of the sort of primal element that was brought in due to the two MCs being non-human species. Werewolf romances will always hook me. (Although what was up with the whole knot thing? Is that a normal part of werewolf lore? I found it weird and gross, so maybe slightly less of the animal/werewolf aspect in the romance would have been okay...) I will say it was a little weak as far as enemies-to-lovers go; although they are from supposedly rival species, they didn't seem to even dislike each other in the beginning. This is pretty on-par with Ali's style--it's low-stakes but still pretty satisfying because the romance is relatively slow-burn.
The plot was another area I feel like this book stood out. I was thoroughly enjoying the mystery aspect of it, and I definitely didn't guess that twist at the end that Serena was also a half-were. I usually find the driving plot in Ali's books takes a backseat to the budding romance and internal monologuing in the FMC's narration. While there was still plenty of those elements in this book, I found they were better balanced by the suspense and intrigue of the plot.
Final verdict: This is a unique paranormal romance with an entertaining plot and cast of characters, only slightly diminished by its lack of originality when compared with the author's other novels.
Ali Hazelwood books ranked:
1. Bride
2. Love, Theoretically
3. The Love Hypothesis
4. Love on the Brain
*Update: Urban fantasy. The term I was looking for was urban fantasy. Lol.
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