ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Tropes:

omegaverse, knotting, first time, marriage of convenience, enemies to lovers, fated mates, third act breakup

Steam level: 🌶🌶🌶

If you've read Hazelwood's other books and enjoyed all of them, and if you don't mind the tropes in this one, I think Bride will work for you. If, like me, you've now read 4 Hazelwood books and are starting to notice the patterns, well...you'll still have a good time, probably. But my experience with Hazelwood so far is that she tends to stick with a certain set of tropes and relationship dynamics, and aside from the fact that our couple here is half Vampyre half Were, the way they interacted and the way the story progressed didn't feel much different.

Also, Misery is such a terrible name.

One thing I will say is that Misery feels more muted when compared to the author's typical heroines. She's still "not like other Vampyres", but she's not very quirky or tiny. Initially, it registered as blandness to me, but by the end I had warmed up to her and her sense of humor. I also appreciated Lowe, but he does feel about the same as the other love interests the author has written. He has a younger sister, and I do always like that dynamic where a man has to take care of a child on his own. I liked the way Misery interacted with her, too. There was a mystery subplot alongside the romance that was fine, but didn't tickle my brain enough that I was actively thinking about it.

The world building doesn't really do anything all that different. I will say that this is the first time I've come across the idea of hostage exchanges between the species, but everything else she did with shapeshifters and vampires was pretty standard, including the things that could count as subverting classic tropes.

So then we're left with the romance.

By the time I was 30% in, our two main characters had conversed maybe 3 times. There was no romance to speak of (some sexual tension, but not too much yet). I suspected that the next 70% would need to cover a pretty fast enemies to lovers, as well as a third act breakup (because this, too, is a trope Hazelwood favours), and then getting back together, and I just couldn't see this happening in any way that would make me feel satisfied. And I was right. The third act breakup was ridiculous and really annoyed me, but it was also resolved so fast that it felt extra pointless. The romance does have cute moments, but I wish the book had been dual POV. Each chapter started with a couple of lines that were from Lowe's perspective, but those were so useless they should've just been left out.

Also, I'll be shocked if this doesn't become a series.