Bride ♥ Ali Hazelwood ♥ Bride #1

Published February 2024 ♥ Published by Berkley

❥ Narrated by Thérèse Plummer & Will Damron

❥ Marriage of Convenience

❥ Forced Proximity

❥ Fated Mates

❥ Werewolves & Vampires

❥ Single POV

There must be something dramatically, massively compatible between us, because I feel every stroke of his fingers deep inside this soul that I’m not suppose to have.

Last month I read Deep End, my first read, well listen, of Ali Hazelwood. I thought it was just okay. There was nothing overly exciting about it to me. The writing was fine, the characters were fine. The whole thing was aggressively fine. I wanted to try a different book by Hazelwood, something less contemporary. So I thought I would give Bride a try.

Spoilers Sweetie.

Skip down to my final thoughts to avoid the possibility of major spoilers.

1. Is this the same narrator from Deep End? *it is.
2. I like the fmc’s name. Misery. 
3. So this is a forced marriage between the vampire Misery and the werewolf Alpha, Lowe. 
4. The relationship between the two supernatural communities is tense af. 
5. Oh boy. I hope this is dual POV. *it’s not.
6. Smell like what?!
7. Wait.. that was just a prologue?
8. Misery is estranged from her family.
9. Girls out here shaving her fucking fangs. 
10. I’m invested. 
11. Drink rotten blood. I’m dead. 
12. Misery is funny. 
13. Ohh a missing friend. 
14. I think I’m liking this more than Deep End. 
15. Boy is obsessed with her scent. 
16. I feel like this Gabi thing is some weird misunderstanding. *I hate this trope.
17. I wish we were getting more than these little snippets from Lowe. 
18. Oh he found your smell alright. 
19. I fucking love your scent. Obsessed. 
20. You have to bite me. 
21. Are these two ever going to bang? & at the same time even with the mate not in the picture..wtf?
22. She makes him want to draw again. 
23. Well this is definitely the first time I’ve read about a were not being anatomically a human…
24. Agreed. Not Gabi at all. 
25. Ouch. 
26. Everything is complicated apparently. 
27. They’re all Bob. I like Serena. 
28. Misery has less than no idea by the sounds of it. 
29. Well I’ll be fucking damned. 

Bride Review

I enjoyed Bride a lot more than Deep End. Although I do feel that Bride is not as spicy. I listened to the first half of Bride and then read the second half. I liked the audio narration, and honestly, I’m not sure why I switched to physically reading it. Also, I really wish this had been dual-pov, but that’s just my preference.

Misery is vampire royalty, and despised by her own kind. At a young age she had been sent as collateral to live with humans. Leaving her ostracized by her own community and hiding among the humans as an adult.

There’s a new Alpha in town.

Lowe wants to put an end to the centuries long feud between the Vampires & Werewolves. In a desperate attempt to forge peace between the two communities, the new Alpha chooses to take a Vampire wife. Misery’s asshole of a father decides to offer her up as collateral once more.

Her bestfriend, the human, Serena, has gone missing.

Misery’s only clue? A name that leads her to the wolves. She agrees to the marriage, if only to find out what happened to her bff. I really enjoyed what little we got of Serena and I’m excited to read Mate because of it.

I really wish Misery was a better vampire. Girl has got zero clues.

The political backdrop to Bride was intriguing, but I wish we got a deeper understanding of the inner workings of the communities. Unfortunately, spending the majority of her life with humans has left Misery clueless about her own kind. I found it to be a bit of a cop-out. Why explain the details when you can just have your character fucking clueless? When she did ask questions, everything was “complicated” and no explanation was really given.

The first time Misery feeds on Lowe. Oh my. This was when I knew I liked Bride more than Deep End.  I find Hazelwood’s sex scenes to be lackluster at best though. When I read Deep End, the fmc was so turned on she couldn’t express much of anything. Which translated to a whole lot of mediocre sex scenes. I was hoping for better in Bride. Unfortunately, Misery is so wound up about Lowe’s knot that essentially the same thing happens.

Originally I rated Bride at four stars. I reevaluated that rating as I wrote this review though. I liked it, but I just didn’t like it. I will read Mate when it comes out, but I think I am done with Hazelwood’s books.

I wonder if my heart has ever beaten this loud before.

My fangs ache, itch, want like never before.

“Mine.” It’s a rumble in his throat.”You smell like you’re mine, Misery.”

We’ve been touching a lot, since yesterday. We are touching a lot.

His heartbeat smells like he’d die for this.

“Of all the good things I’ve felt in my fucking life, you are the best.”

For the first time in my life, though, I wish I’d done the Human thing and bought something soft to fall on.

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