Tag Archives: werewolves

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Book Review: The Rejected Shifter’s Required Bride, by Brigitte Delery

I picked up a copy of Brigitte Delery‘s The Rejected Shifter’s Required Bride during a freebie event last Christmas.

the rejected shifter's required bride

Promised to a stranger in an arranged marriage masked ball he wasn’t supposed to attend. Paired for life with a monster she doesn’t know how to tame. The last thing either expected to find was love.

Wolf shifter Malin Fenren of the Dark Claw Pack should have been celebrating his first days as a happily mated future Alpha. Instead, the woman he thought was his forever mate left him at the altar for someone else and his exciting future turned into something far more horrific- a fate where he turns into the worst kind of monster he could imagine before succumbing to his own destruction. In a last ditch effort to save him from a quick decline into madness and death, Malin’s parents swap him in for a spot in the Mate Masquerade, where volunteers from each supernatural community are paired in arranged marriages with strangers to maintain peace between them all.

As part of the often-maligned human community, Isabella Thompson stepped up as a volunteer for this year’s Mate Masquerade in exchange for payment of her father’s debts. She doesn’t quite know what she’s gotten herself into, but if it saves her sisters from poverty and destitution, she’s going to make the best of things. Getting paired with a monster who might kill her at any moment was a risk she’d have to take. But falling for her assigned mate definitely wasn’t part of the plan.

This paranormal fantasy romance book was originally part of the Wicked Arrangements collaboration and is now part of the Mate Masquerade series. Each book in this series features an arranged marriage masquerade ball where participants are paired and expected to wed and bed a stranger by the end of the night.

my review

The cover is atrocious. The editing is hit or miss, often miss. The plot is pretty predictable, and the necessity of the mate-ball being a masquerade makes little sense. (It’s my understanding that this was initially written as part of a multi-author shared world involving the mate masquerade.) Despite all of that, I enjoyed this. Isabella is immensely practical, and I love a practical heroine who will just get on with what must be done. Malin is just incredibly sweet and trying to hold it together to do the right thing in what is, for him, a very challenging situation. And the sister offers a little comic relief. All in all, it makes for an endearing read.

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Book Review: Bride, by Ali Hazelwood

I purchased a copy of Ali Hazelwood‘s Bride at Barnes & Noble.

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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.

my review

I was really pleasantly surprised by this one. It is trope-tastic and, therefore, super predictable if you’ve read any significant number of PNR books. So, don’t go in expecting anything radically new and inventive. In a very real sense, it is made up of the same-same as a million other PNR books.

But I liked the characters a lot. There’s some fun banter and sarcastic asides, and there are some interesting interspecies negotiations. Lowe pines marvelously. Despite having no significant POV in the book, the reader feels it. This is likely because the author’s writing is uncomplicated and easily readable. The book, and so the reader’s experience, flows nicely. All in all, I wish the next was already out so I could jump right in.

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“Bride” by Ali Hazelwood (Review)

Book Review: Wolf’s Lady, by Jessica Marting

I recently asked for recommendations for monster romance or PNR that stood alone. Jessica Marting‘s Magic & Mechanicals series was one that someone suggested. And as I happened to already own Wolf’s Lady (book one), I gave it a read.

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The only mistake Lady Adelle Thornber ever made turned into a scandal that rocked London and saw her banished to Scotland, the reluctant bride of a reclusive baron. But Lord Henry MacAulay isn’t what she was expecting: he cares deeply for his barony and for her.

As the sole heir to the Roseheath title and werewolf alpha, Henry knew that he had to take a mate someday. He just didn’t expect to find her in a disgraced noble’s daughter forced into marriage with him.

As he falls more deeply in love with Adelle, he can’t bring himself to tell her what he really is. But if he doesn’t, it may not be his werewolf nature that could tear them apart.

my review

I thought this was a sweet, if predictable, shifter romance. I liked Adelle and Henry. I especially liked that they were plain-spoken and simply told each other what they wanted from the other. This meant that, outside the obvious deception mentioned in the blurb, there was very little angst in the development of the relationship. However, I also thought the villain was overblown and cliched. And the plotting is pretty shallow. There isn’t a lot to the story. But for a sweet, fluffy, easy read, it’s worth picking up.

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