Overall Take:
Ali Hazelwoods first toe dip into writing a paranormal romcom was a lot of fun. I’m excited for my SE.
Star Rating:
5 Glorious Stars
Genre:
Paranormal Romance, RomCom
Synopsis:
Misery is the daughter to the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest. She’s an outcast and since she’s never really belonged, she’s called upon to uphold her coven’s best interest by setting forth on a peacekeeping mission.
The Were’s are the mortal enemies of the Vampyre’s. Their Alpha, Lowe, is determined to set his pack on a new destiny, and in doing so he seeks an alliance with the Vampyres. He agrees to marry Misery.
Misery hides the true reasons she was willing to marry a werewolf. She is determined to get back what’s hers, even if it means living alone in werewolf territory for a year.
Thoughts:
Ali Hazelwood is fantastic, and this book is just amazing. I love her women in STEM novels and was a little hesitant to try a paranormal romance by her, but I love the genre and I love her so why not, and I was glad I did because this book was great! Ali brought her signature witty writing to this genre and it was fantastic.
Misery and Lowe were both fantastic characters, and all the side characters were great as well. I got a kick out of the fact that she didn’t shed her women in STEM completely as she mad the female main character of this one fantastic with computers, it was a nice touch. I enjoyed the sub plot of Serena and trying to track her down, it was entertaining. As well as Ana and her being seven years old was a huge kick for me. I did feel that she was written a little young for being seven, but since she led such a sheltered life it did work. It was fun and terrifying for me because I have a daughter a similar age.
The narrators were great. While this was a dual narration, it was primarily told from Misery’s point of view. It was nice to get a little piece of Lowe’s point of view every now and again and the narrator switch was flawless. They both did a great job portraying the emotions and intentions of the characters and bringing them to life.
Now the spice in this book was a little different because we are what I consider dabbling in monster smut territory since Lowe is werewolf. I do say dabble because he is having sex in his human form, but certain elements are still present. So they do have to figure out what is going to happen when Lowe knots, which he has never done before, since it only happens with your mate, and Misery is his. Ultimately through talking it out, taking it slow and patience they do get it to work and its glorious. It ends up being the perfect representative of what bedroom discussions should look like.
I can’t really say too much about the ending because it would be a huge spoiler and I don’t want to be a jerk. But I am glad that Misery and Lowe were able to find the help for Anna that she needs, and they can all live together, because they want to.
I love the subtle messages in romance books these days, once I wouldn’t pick up on if I wasn’t listening for. Explicit consent for things. I think that as an industry we’ve come leaps and bounds, but its starting to affect real life relationships as well. Consent matters and should be talked about and it’s normal to do so!
This book that sucked me in from the start and I didn’t want to stop playing it.
Thanks for my copy to:
Thank you so much to @PRHAudio for an ALC copy. My thoughts are my own.
Publication Date:
February 6, 2024
Author:
Ali Hazelwood
Page Length:
410 pages
Publisher:
PRHAudio, special edition by Illumicrate
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