Beloved contemporary romance author Ali Hazelwood (Love, Theoretically; The Love Hypothesis) steps away from the world of STEM and into the paranormal with Bride, her take on Vampyres, Weres (werewolves), and the fated-mates trope. To keep the tenuous peace between their ever-warring peoples, Vampyre Misery Lark and Lowe Moreland, an Alpha Were, marry. For Misery, it's at first another task in a life full of choices that aren't her own, thanks to a power-hungry father. But she then develops her own agenda, one that benefits from being inside Were territory. Her secret doesn't remain so for long, and Misery and Lowe soon join forces against shadowy figures with ill intent. Their goals are far from the only thing that become intertwined: mutual feelings quickly spark from their tentative friendship.
Hazelwood incorporates delightfully silly moments, such as a Vampyre's shame of her love of peanut butter: "This is so undignified. Can you please not tell anyone and throw my corpse in the lake after I run myself through the garbage disposal, which I'm going to do right now?" Other lines will leave readers swooning: "Am I your mate? Is it okay if it doesn't matter? Is it okay if I want to be?" She blends her signature punchy humor and growling men ("He could destroy entire galaxies with a stern look and growl") with emotional depth as Misery and Lowe explore what it could look like to make their own choices and to build a life together. This fresh entry in the paranormal romance subgenre will appeal to readers already familiar with Hazelwood's body of work and to those encountering her for the first time. --Kristen Coates, editor and freelance reviewer