Episode 5- Ali Hazelwood is the Queen of Banter and A Review of The Ballad of Falling Dragons by Sarah A Parker

fantasy romance these days I don't know what's wrong with me but hopefully I'll snap out of it soon but actually these two books are not books that I like read say and no I read them recently actually so I'll be reviewing Bride by Ali Hazelwood and also The Ballad of Fallen Dragons by Sarah A Parker both books that I sort of read in the last two to three months I read Bride sort of in April and The Ballad of Fallen Dragons was pretty recently literally within the week that it came out so let's dive right into it so first book Bride by Ali Hazelwood oh my god so I think Ali Hazelwood you know is like the queen of top tier banter I've been seeing Ali Hazelwood's name all around you know like when you see top lists of the year etc I see her name come up quite often but what I didn't realize was she's actually one of these few authors who can dabble into different genres because not only does she write no more like contemporary romance, she also writes fantasy and she writes fantasy really, really well.

And that's not something a lot of authors are really good at doing, being able to dip into those two genres really well.

So for example, Rebecca Yarris, who's the famous author of the Fourth Wing series.

So she never used to write fantasy and she literally dove into fantasy fourth wing and it became a literal sensation overnight but her normal her normal genre is like contemporary contemporary romance So yeah, Ali Hazelwood is pretty much in that space.

And she is, in my opinion, she's like the queen of banter.

Like I read, I think this was my first Ali Hazelwood book.

And I just thought, okay, right, let's give this author a chance because I keep seeing her name everywhere.

Do you know what, I finished reading this and I went to look for another book.

When I saw another one of her books that was in people's top 2025 list, I picked it up immediately because she's now an auto buy author.

for me because i've read two or three of her books now and all of them all of them have been amazing So let's hear the blog for Bride, shall we? So Bride, I actually have as a physical copy.

I was in a bookshop recently, oh, well, I think months ago, and it was on sale.

And I was just like, okay, well, what the hell? Let's give it a go.

The reason I've not read this book before now, and it took me a while to actually pick it up, is if you see the cover, you said you would not want to buy the book, okay? I mean, I wish you could see that I was on video right now.

It's so basic.

And it's like a drawing that somebody just did on a piece of paper somewhere.

It doesn't give, you know, a really cool romance novel kind of feel.

You know, it's sort of black and white.

The bride is wearing a purple.

She's in some jumpsuit thing, which apparently was her bridal wear on the day of her wedding.

And it just...

Yeah, I don't know.

It's not giving.

Please buy me.

So anyway, I sort of always overlooked it.

But please don't be a mean and don't let this cover put you off.