The marriage bargain review

The Marriage Bargain is a science fiction dystopian fated mates romance. It takes place on earth.

Alien Overlords ruling Earth need human females to rebuild a decimated population. Delle refuses to end up on a breeder's list. Overlord Caide wants to avoid returning to his home planet and his father's harsh rule. Can a marriage of convenience protect them both?

Earth was ripped apart during the Final War, but the alien Overlords have come down to save us.

Or have they?

Delle: Life is simple for my older sister, even under the Overlords’ rule. She’s happily married and a mother of four. According to our alien rulers, I should be emulating her. But I want more than to be a breeder, having some blasted alien’s babies. Nope. Not the life for me. Then a cruel alien Flight Commander tries to claim me as his own. My only way out is a marriage of convenience… with an Overlord from the planet Asterion. Caide, my brother-in-law’s boss. It’s the last thing I want, but Overlord Caide promises he won’t force anything on me. Sex. Babies. Love.

Caide: The illegitimate son of an Asterion noble, I took a spot on one of the first starships coming to Earth where I built a new life for myself. Now my half-brother, my father’s heir, has died, and my father wants me to return home. In order to circumvent my father, I must marry a human female so the Asterion nobility will consider me tainted. I can’t deny that Delle, my employee’s sister-in-law, with her generous curves and hot temper, has caught my eye. She’s also caught the eye of a harsh military ruler. She needs a way to escape him, and I need a way to escape going home. So I offer her a bargain. A marriage bargain.

One of the stipulations she sets is that we can’t fall in love. But that may be the part of the bargain I can’t keep. As it turns out, Delle is my mate. Whether she believes it—likes it—or not.

Moriah Blackwood’s Bound to an Overlord series is spicy-sweet and steamy-clean, so you get plenty of sizzle without the scorch. Each full-length novel has a guaranteed HEA, no cliffhanger, and no cheating.

My review 

I kinda liked this book. I love the forced marriage trope, where at least one of the characters dislikes the other one. However, I thought that she went from dislike to liking him really fast. Delle is an outspoken heroine, who dislikes the aliens that have envaded earth. However, she quickly realizes that Caide is not so bad for an alien. There is a lottery for unmarried human females and the only option is to marry Caide. His motivation is to stay away from his home planet and his father. The beginning is kinda slow; we get to understand how the world has changed after the invasion of the aliens before the romance takes a bigger part of the story. Approximately half of the story is spent without romance, so it felt very rushed at the end and the feelings were quickly developped. This type of story is very predictable and had no real plot twists. I'd give it a 6/10.