Ali Hazelwood

Mate

I loved this book! If you read and loved Bride, you are sure to love Mate as well. 

The banter, the snark, the relatable heroine and the growly ‘touch her and die’ MMC, all combined into one fantastic book. 

It took me a few chapters to get into it because the timeline bounces around a bit and that’s not my fave in general but once we were mostly in the present I was absolutely hooked!

I loved the pack dynamics and really enjoyed Serena finding her place in Koen’s pack, as someone who didn’t have a family other than her best friend it was just lovely to see her find a family in the pack. And of course I’d be remiss to not mention her bestie, I loved Serena and Misery’s friendship so much. 

I do recommend reading Bride first if you haven’t yet. I will admit some of the author’s academic books didn’t work as well for me but I love love love this world so much, so don’t be afraid to give this a try if you feel the same!

A top read of 2025 for sure. 

Under The Mistletoe

Under The Mistletoe Collection is out today! Thank you to Amazon for the early copy in exchange for an honest review. 

Similar to the Improbable Meet Cute collection released earlier this year, this is a collection of five short romances from popular romance authors so I was excited to dig in! I was surprised by which ended up being my favorites (and least favorite 😬)

These are all available now in both ebook and audio in Kindle Unlimited (Read and Listen)!

Bride – Ali Hazelwood

My goodness did I love this book! I didn’t necessarily think I would but man was I wrong (again.)

It’s a marriage of convenience romance between a werewolf alpha and the vampyre daughter of a councilman. Misery’s best friend has gone missing and the only clue points to her new husband so she agrees to marry to try to find out what happened, while he agrees to the marriage for political reasons. 

Misery has long been neglected by her family unless she can be used to their advantage, and I just loved her. She was alone in enemy territory, doing whatever she could to try to find her bestie and I loved her journey as she navigated that. She was so snarky, so funny, and her walls were up so high in a very believable way with her history. I loved her romance with Lowe but I loved her relationship with Lowe’s little sister even more. They genuinely had me giggling with their interactions.

Lowe was the new alpha to his pack, and did everything he could to keep a distance from his new bride but just couldn’t stay away. He was a great character but the star for me was really Misery.

I loved the angst and longing between these two strangers who meet for the first time at their wedding.The romance is a bit of a slow burn due to Misery’s circumstances but I loved how they eventually built a relationship and it did get good and steamy eventually.

I have a long history with vampire and werewolf romance so I will say parts of it were pretty easy to guess what would happen but the author’s voice felt fresh and it was honestly such a joy to read! I loved it and look forward to more in this world.