The Hometown Hazard
By Dawn Lanuza
Genre: New Adult, Romance
Release
date: January 29, 2016
Available on Buqo!
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?
Sweat trickled down from
my forehead. I craned my neck to find a store so I could get myself a bottle of
water, but when I turned around, I saw Kip standing nearby. He was leaning on
to a bright red motorcycle, weight shifted on one side, the other knee bent.
His black pants were torn too, partially exposing his left knee. Ripped piece
of clothing apart, Kip still looked well, and seemed like he had just stepped
out of the shower, even with this heat.
Our eyes met. Then he
frowned.
“You’re everywhere,” Was
my form of greeting, voice loud enough for him to hear me as I crossed the street
to get to his side.
There’s a slight breeze
that made me realize that he even smelled like he just got out of shower.
His eyes were focused on
the dancers, but responded to me with, “How am I everywhere?”
“You’re here.”
“And what are you doing
here?” Kip asked.
“Same thing you’re doing,”
And with that, I meant snooping on the dancers.
He finally looked at me,
eyes narrowing, “So you’re here to do something sneaky?”
“No.”
Kip straightened his back,
licking his lower lip, “It’s because I live here, you know.”
I frowned, “Crispin, train
of thought. I don’t follow.”
“I’m everywhere because I
live here. You don’t.” I didn’t argue. He threw me a side glance, “Why? Does it
bother you that I’m around?”
My mouth twitched. “Well,
considering that I caught you doing things one shouldn’t be doing more than
once since I got here and a part of you thinks my dad is a thief, yes. I don’t
exactly find that cute.”
“Well, I wasn’t trying to
be...” He crossed his arms over his chest, looking like he’s enjoying teasing
me, “Do you think I’m trying to be cute?
On Choosing the Right Cover and Title
When it comes to writing books, choosing the title and thinking
of a cover are actually two things that I deal with last.
For some people, titles come first before the whole plot but for
me, I almost dread it. For a long time, I always just call my manuscript as a
‘story’ or ‘this thing’!
But I guess my process for it would always be that I’d think of
particular phrases and even scout for song titles and lyrics. For The Boyfriend Backtrack, it more of
started when my friend and I were brainstorming and she mentioned patterning it
with the idea of #ThrowbackThursday or #FlashbackFriday because in a sense, the
book fits that idea. So after jumbling several words, I came up with the title,
wasn’t sure if it sounded well so I asked my friends what they think about it and
they were cool with it. For The Hometown
Hazard, I wanted to sort of keep the same pattern and just pulled the
dictionary and jumbled A LOT of words before ending up with that one. For What About Today, I actually took the
idea from the classic song “What A Difference a Day Makes” (though it took me a
long time before getting to that song).
For covers, I think it’s really important to find an artist that
gets you and is patient with you. I was lucky to find my artist Reg from the
internet (! Short back story – he lives in the US, he used to read my music
blog, we email a bit before I started writing books, then I remembered that he’s
a graphic artist and he designs stuff!). When he created my cover for The Boyfriend Backtrack, I just sent him
my synopsis. Just from that, he already gave me three studies which was pretty
cool! Same thing for What About Today,
I just gave him my pitch for the book (as I wasn’t done writing it at the time)
and he just ran with! That is by far my favorite cover from all my books. Of course we do discuss the details,
font, color changes, etc. – for The Hometown Hazard, because I felt like
this was a bit different for me genre-wise, I sent him a couple of covers/artworks
before sending him the synopsis.
So I wouldn’t say that I have a clear process for each book, it
always seems like there’s a different approach with each one but I think it’s
really important to have a group of people to throw and test your ideas on. It
really takes a village to finish a book.
Dawn Lanuza
started writing stories when she was just a kid (they weren’t good or even
finished). She works for the music industry by day and writes meet cutes and
snappy comebacks by night. ‘The Boyfriend Backtrack’ is her first book. She
currently lives with her family and an adopted dog.
