A book shrouded with mystery and sprinkled a bit of romance ~The Hometown Hazard by Dawn Lanuza

8:20:00 PM

Photo taken from Ms. Dawn's website
Title: The Hometown Hazard
Author: Dawn Lanuza
Format acquired: ebook
Source: Gifted
Publication date: January 29, 2016

Summary:

Jules Coronado has been away from her hometown for almost a decade but when an intruder breaks in to her childhood home, she finds herself coming back. Changes evidently took place in her small town, including her childhood best friend’s younger brother, Kip – now tall, slightly scruffed, all grown up and caught climbing into their garden wall.

Kip Villamor has a mission and despite Jules’ doubts, they team up: going on fieldtrips, tackling unsuspecting men, and trespassing offices to dig up dirt. But Jules has secrets of her own, one that might be exposed – unless she keeps her walls up. But climbing walls are Kip’s forte, remember?

Will her secrets keep her on his side, or will it force her to disappear again?

  
Review:

The Hometown Hazard is a book shrouded with mystery and sprinkled with a bit of romance. It has character development, mystery that will keep you flipping the pages and an easy going pace. I love that the author went out of her comfort zone to write this book. It’s completely different compared to her previous work.

If you have read Ms. Dawn’s debut novel then you’ll be familiar with the protagonist in this book. Jules is the no-nonsense friend of Regina. She’s very serious and she’s the type of woman who always has plan B up to Z prepared if plan A failed. But in this book, we get to see a different side of her. I love how Jules went through a character development in this book. She went out of her shell and I guess we have to thank Crispin (his name never fails to amuse me. LOL) for that development. Kip is the main guy in the story. He’s the younger brother of Jules’ best friend and he’s also her childhood friend. Kip’s outgoing, impulsive and a daredevil. His personality reminds me of Leslie. It’s like I’m seeing a male version of Leslie with a mysterious aura around him. Kip is the polar opposite of Jules. It’s like they’re sun and moon. But as the famous adage goes, “opposites attract each other.” And that’s what happened in this book. I honestly didn’t like Kip in the first half of the book. There’s something about him that irked me when I was reading the first half of the book. I can’t pinpoint what it was since I myself can’t understand the reason why I didn’t like him. My best guess was that I hated how he acted in the first half of the book. I’m that one lone girl among the sea of fangirls who didn’t swoon over his character.

What I love in Dawn Lanuza’s books is that it always has a believable love story in it. That kind of love story that you would really see in real life and maybe experience it yourself. The pace of the romance in this book was okay. Okay in a sense that it’s not too fast nor too slow. It’s the kind of pacing that I want to see in a contemporary book

The highlight of this book is the mystery that surrounds the plot. I like the feeling of unraveling the answers in the book. This book made me feel like I’m Sherlock Holmes. The reason why I like the mystery in this book was that it made me feel like I’m part of the Kip-Jules tag team. It made reading interactive in a way that I’m also solving the mystery with the characters.

The Hometown Hazard is a must read for those people that loves to expose secrets and unravel mysteries. It’s a book that has a realistic love story, characters that went through character development and intriguing plot.


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2 comments

  1. I haven't heard of this book before but it sounds good! I love a good mystery. Great review, Alyssa!

    Haraiah @ Random Things In Action

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  2. I've never heard of this book either - but very keen to read it soon.

    http://lizziedailyblog.blogspot.co.uk/

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