At first, I was confused to find Unwilling Bride by MJ Drakkon on my shelf, since it is the 3rd book in a series I haven’t read (and don’t own the first books). But in the end, it seemed like something I could read as a standalone, and it is on my “no review” reading challenge. So, I gave it a shot.

Welcome to Risaard, the vampire city-state. For centuries, the monolithic stone castle Risaard stood over the city below as the mortals went about their lives under the rule of their vampiric prince, Erik. When the prince decided to mend the rift that exists between his people and the werewolves, he captured Wynter, a young werewolf woman to take as his bride, expecting that taming her and organising the treaties would be the only things he needed to worry about. If only that had been the case. Assassins hiding in the castle, fleeting shadows and phantom knocking, he doesn’t even know who he can trust anymore. The only thing they can all know for certain now… Is that none of them are safe.

This is a good example of why I hate being the first person to review a book. I didn’t care for it, and I’m about to write a review reflecting that, but there are no nicer reviews to balance it out. *le sigh.* For the record, this is a 3rd book in the series that I havn’t read. But it stands alone fairly well. I could tell some people and events referred to past books. But it wasn’t a problem.

While Unwilling Bride had an interesting and somewhat unexpected twist toward the end (though the actual ending was predictable), overall it was bland, clichéd, and kind of a mess. I’ll get the unimportant stuff out of the way first. I purchased a physical copy of this on Amazon some time back. So, it’s not an ARC or anything like that. Despite that, the formatting is…well, it’s unconventional. Let’s go with that. It needs a professional formatter and copy editor.

Storywise, I have little positive to say. Wynter is all the small, frail, female clichés rolled into one milqtoast whole. Erik is an alpha a-hole cardboard cutout. The reader doesn’t get to know either of them well enough to care about their outcome. Wynter, for example, is referred to as “the girl” (and such) until the very end, which keeps her at a significant distance from the reader (and is also an example of telling instead of showing). Erik just doesn’t have enough character for the reader to get to know. The romance isn’t based on anything. There’s a hint of BDSM kink, which is just abuse, and considering the book has no sex in it, it feels phenomenally out of place. And the whole thing just went on far too long. All in all, this was a flop for me.

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