Ali Hazelwood, the bestselling author of THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS and LOVE, THEORETICALLY, explores love from another angle in BRIDE. This Werewolf-Vampyre paranormal romance features a marriage of convenience, a centuries-old battle, and…love?

Everyone knows that her wedding day is the most dreamed of, anticipated and beautiful day in a young bride’s life. But for the aptly named Misery Lark, her wedding is less a dream come true and more a nightmare from which she can’t wake up. As the daughter of a powerful Vampyre councilman, Misery is accustomed to being used as collateral --- literally, if you count the 10 years that she was forced to live among humans to ensure peace between the two warring species --- but being asked to marry a Werewolf is something else entirely.

"Hazelwood’s spin on this marriage of convenience, fated mates and paranormal Romeo and Juliet romance is every bit her own, and readers will delight in her creativity, wit and love of love."

For centuries, Vampyres have watched their numbers dwindle, with difficult procreation and painful prejudices keeping their birth rate impossibly low, while the populations of humans and Werewolves seem to explode. For a long time, the council, led by Misery’s father, maintained a careful compromise with the humans, betting on their shared hatred of Werewolves to keep the peace, and using hostage children as their bargaining chips. But a recent election and the dissolution of their compromise have rocked their stability, pushing the council to desperate measures: the marriage between a Vampyre and a Werewolf.

Sure, the marriage is in name only, and Misery will have to live on Werewolf land for just one year. But that doesn’t exactly comfort her as she walks down the aisle toward the biggest, most commanding man she has ever seen: her husband, the alpha of his pack, who seems to stiffen at her scent...and not in a good way.

You might be asking yourself why Misery would agree to such a bargain. After all, it is no secret that Werewolves and Vampyres hate one another, with each species relying on outdated myths to stereotype and discriminate against the other. In fact, the last time that an interspecies marriage was attempted, it ended in a total and complete massacre. But Misery, a clever, technology-minded young woman who is accustomed to forging her own path, has an ulterior motive. Serena, the foster sister who became her bosom friend when she was a Collateral and has stuck by her side through their teens and early 20s, has vanished. The only things she left behind were a cat (Vampyres don’t really do pets, so this is a particularly cruel gift) and a note written in their secret code with a name on it: L. E. Moreland...aka Misery’s new husband, Lowe Moreland.

Isolated from her own kind (which is not too different from the last seven years of her life, but still), closely monitored by angry, prejudiced Werewolves, and more or less ignored by her brooding husband, Misery struggles to adapt to life in Were territory. For one thing, she can’t exactly snoop when she is being guarded by gigantic men and women who can shapeshift at any turn. For another, the frequent assassination attempts are a bit distracting.

Misery has never quite fit in with any species: the humans would fear her if they knew she was a Vampyre; her Vampyre kin turn their noses at her for her (involuntary) life with humans; and you’ve already heard about the disastrous Werewolf massacre. She has learned a few tips and tricks for staying alive (hint: when an angry Werewolf man is attacking you, go for the groin), but it’s entirely different living on Were territory where her potential murder could come from any angle and from any Werewolf at any time. There’s also the fact that her marriage of convenience seems to have an added inconvenience: her husband already may have a fated mate, which Misery is sure makes him hate her even more than he already does.

Still, this is a romance, so naturally there’s real, visceral, sparkling chemistry between Misery and her groom, who is turning out to be the most confounding, enigmatic “people” she has ever met. Never mind that they’re biologically incompatible (fans of Hazelwood’s Steminist series will love how she breaks down the science and genetic differences between the species), Misery also has a serious mystery to solve. Years of dispute, rumor and plain hatred have obfuscated the truths of the Vampyre and Werewolf communities and their ability to compromise and coexist. True to Hazelwood’s oeuvre, BRIDE is composed of her trademark humor, steamy, out-of-this-world sex scenes, and reliably satisfying twists on popular tropes of both the romance and paranormal romance genres.

It is always a scary thing when a favorite author attempts a new genre, and as a longtime fan of Hazelwood’s “women in STEM” romances, I was equal parts curious and fearful of how she would take to the paranormal genre. But after crossing enemy lines into Were territory, dissecting the unique biologies of both Werewolf and Vampyre, and racing through the hot, steamy pages of her more erotic scenes, I have no idea what I was worried about. Though Hazelwood relies more on tropes and common story lines than she does in her contemporary romances, this reliance proves more of a boon than a failing. Her comfort with the paranormal allows her to really break free in her characterizations and mystery plotline, as well as her signature humor.

While BRIDE hasn’t been announced as a series (yet!), I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I would do anything to return to this world and continue to live, breathe, fight and love amid the Vampyres and Werewolves. Hazelwood’s spin on this marriage of convenience, fated mates and paranormal Romeo and Juliet romance is every bit her own, and readers will delight in her creativity, wit and love of love.