This book is another book that was recommended by Wanda on the Next 50 blog. You can read her review here. I had put a hold on the ebook version at that time, but being a new book, the wait was going to be months. However, I had to pick up my granddaughter from her job downtown and after checking the library website, I found that this book was available in paper. So I picked up while I was waiting for her to be done working.
My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
Bride by Ali Hazelwood B-
This is a paranormal romance from a bestselling author. The premise is that the Bride, Misery Lark, is a vampire who is volunteered/volunteers to be the bride/hostage of the Alpha werewolf of the local pack, Lowe Moreland. The backdrop is that the three races - humans, vampires, and werewolves live in close proximity to each other, though each in their own territory, and there has been, and threatens to be once more, conflict and wars between these races. A fragile peace has been maintained by the exchange of hostages. Misery, the daughter of the Vampire leader, had been a child hostage to the humans for ten years, and found that she didn't fit into the Vampire world after having grown up apart from it. She preferred to live amongst the humans, along with her "sister", a human orphan who lived with her during her hostage years as a companion. The story revolves around her friend who has gone missing, and Misery suspecting that Lowe Moreland might be behind it. So, when she offered/ordered to be the bride of Lowe Moreland as a hostage to peace between the vampires and werewolves, she takes it with the idea of trying to find her best, and only friend.
As I said, this is a romance, a slow burn one between Misery and Lowe, along with the mystery of her missing friend, are the driving forces of the story. While I didn't find this plot too convincing, what I really enjoyed and earned this book its grade was the writing. Ali Hazelwood wrote it in first person, with a great deal of wit and cleverness - the qualities of writing I really enjoy. I am not the target audience for this type of book, but I enjoyed it largely on account of how it was written despite not being the target audience, and the so-so story.
Bride earned its "-" simply on account of the lack of world-building. While you have people who are openly werewolves and vampires, making this some sort of secondary world, the author never bothered to fill out this different world, or explain how this world is different than the one we know. Everything, from cell phones to computers to Cessna airplanes are just lifted straight from our world. I found that rather lazy for what is a fantasy, though I suspect that the target audience - romance readers - don't care much about this.
The bottom line - an entertaining story, my reservations overcome by the breezy, clever writing of Ali Hazelwood.
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