If you read any romance at all recently, you’ve probably heard of Ali Hazelwood. The megapopular author—and BookTok sensation—has found breakout success with her hit series of STEMinist romances, contemporary love stories with nerdy heroines set in traditionally male-dominated professional fields of science, technology, and math. But in the past year, Hazelwood has been expanding her horizons a bit.
Sure, she released what you could argue is her best STEMinist romance yet (Love, Theoretically) in 2023. But she also made her YA debut with Check & Mate, a contemporary coming-of-age tale set in the world of competitive chess that also happened to feature a killer rivals-to-lovers romance. Now, as 2024 begins, she’s trying something completely different: Paranormal romance.
Titled Bride, the story features vampires, werewolves, an arranged marriage, and loads of political intrigue. In short, this is entirely new ground for Hazelwood and a pretty big swerve from her popular romances about neuroscientists and theoretical physicists fighting to be taken seriously in a patriarchal world. Here, we follow Misery Lark, the daughter of a prominent vampire counselor, who must marry Lowe Moreland, the Alpha of a prominent werewolf pack, in order to ease tensions between their species and prevent war. Misery has reasons of her own for agreeing to this obviously political match, but how will her plans change when her relationship with Lowe starts to feel like something more than convenience?
Here’s how the publisher describes the story.
Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is an outcast—again. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over: she has been called upon to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and she sees little choice but to surrender herself in the exchange—again…
Weres are ruthless and unpredictable, and their Alpha, Lowe Moreland, is no exception. He rules his pack with absolute authority, but not without justice. And, unlike the Vampyre Council, not without feeling. It’s clear from the way he tracks Misery’s every movement that he doesn’t trust her. If only he knew how right he was….
Because Misery has her own reasons to agree to this marriage of convenience, reasons that have nothing to do with politics or alliances, and everything to do with the only thing she’s ever cared about. And she is willing to do whatever it takes to get back what’s hers, even if it means a life alone in Were territory…alone with the wolf.
We got the chance to chat with Hazelwood herself about Bride, what made her want to write such a different kind of romance, and what readers can expect from the story.
Paste Magazine: Tell us about Bride! What can readers expect from this story? What excited you most about writing it?
Ali Hazelwood: It’s the story of a Vampyre, Misery, who has to enter an arranged marriage with the alpha of the local werewolf pack, Lowe. They are different species, and they should be enemies, but they end up joining forces pretty early on.
Of course, shenanigans occur—which are my favorite thing to write.
Paste: Paranormal vampire werewolf romance is sort of a swerve from your STEM-focused stories like Love, Theoretically and The Love Hypothesis. What drew you to this genre of romance specifically?
Hazelwood: Paranormal is actually one of the subcategories of romance that made me fall in love with genre!
I grew up reading Nalini Singh, J.R. Ward, Christine Feehan, Kresley Cole, Patricia Briggs, and many more! Fated Mates is my favorite trope ever, and paranormal romance is a perfect playground to explore it.
Paste: Tell us about Misery Lark—besides her outstanding name, of course—what sort of journey is she on and how does she compare to some of your other, more human heroines?
Hazelwood: I think part of Misery’s issue is that she is not on a journey. She’s pretty closed off emotionally (understandably, given that she’s little more than a political pawn in the eyes of her own family, and that people have been trying to kill her since she was a wee baby) but there is one person she does care about, and she’s incredibly loyal to them.
Misery’s story is very much about allowing herself to want to form bonds with others.
Paste: What can you tease for us about Misery’s relationship with Lowe? What is their dynamic like?
Hazelwood: This is a they have been taught to be enemies book.
While Misery and Lowe’s species have traditionally been at war, they’re both fairly reasonable individuals, and they’re both trying to make the best of a terrible situation. Not to say that their marriage starts off smoothly, but initially, they just want to steer clear of their spouse (if for slightly different reasons). As the story progresses, they realize that they have more things in common than they originally believed, and a very tentative alliance quickly escalates to something more as they begin to acknowledge that they want to boink each other.
Paste: What kind of tropes can we look forward to?
Hazelwood: I would say:
- Arranged marriage
- Fated mates
- Forbidden love
- I’ll kill anyone who hurts my (fake) wife
- Solving a mystery together
- Single dad (kind of?)
- Oh no we’re not biologically compatible how are we gonna have sex?? (Is that a trope?)
Paste: Between the existence of Bride and the fact that Elsie from Love, Theoretically is a Twilight fan it certainly feels like you yourself might be a vampire romance enthusiast! Do you have a favorite book in this subgenre?
Hazelwood: I truly cannot choose one! But the Guild Hunter series (Nalini Singh) Black Dagger Brotherhood series (J.R. Ward), and Immortals After Dark (Kresely Cole) all fill me with infinite joy!
Bride officially hits shelves on Tuesday, February 6, but you can pre-order it right now.
Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB