One line review: The romance should not have been the focus. 

I went into this knowing it’s a romance novel, it’s called ‘Bride’ after all, however:  An arranged marriage? Talk of Vampyre and Were population decline? Alliances? Political intrigue? A mystery? far more interesting than what is a mediocre semi-slow burn. 

Misery has the foundations of a great charter and showed growth and change. Lowe however was as one dimensional as they come - Misery tells us about all these characteristics he supposedly has but it’s not particularly shown beyond some very uninspired scenes of family love. I will say it was an quick read and the spicy scenes were not cringe nor did they make me skip past at the mention of the word ‘knot’ as I would usually do. 

A noir detective angle would have  played into the excellent setting and would have allowed Misery’s job to feel authentic, tied in with her important political status, and shown her to be the smart, competent vampyre that Hazlewood clearly wanted her to be. Without it feeling like a forced characterisation. The politics could have then had the space to develop at a believable pace and  the jump to resolution would not have felt as quick.