REVIEWED BY CINDY
TITLE: Hollywood Homecoming
AUTHOR: CJ Lowe
PUBLISHER: Spunk Books
LENGTH: 119 Pages
Blurb:
Two years ago, Evan Crane and Drake Teaghan went to high school together. Although they never spoke, both of them harbored a secret crush towards the other.
Upon graduation, Drake went off to Hollywood to seek fame and fortune while Evan stayed behind and took over his father’s thrift shop.
Now Drake has come back to his home town for Christmas. A chance meeting with Evan at the local gym sees them reunite and the feelings they had for each other are swiftly revived. They succumb to their passion but their joy is short-lived.
Now so used to the unprejudiced attitude of Hollywood, Drake finds it hard to understand why Evan is so closeted about his sexuality. Evan in turn, does not understand how Drake could have forgotten how unforgiving and narrow minded their small town is, especially to people like them. And Drake’s about to get a stark reminder…
Review:
I picked up this book from this “new to me” author because the premise intrigued me, but I don’t think it quite lived up to it’s promise.
Evan is a sweet man who’s been living a stifled quiet life in the small town he grew up in. He tries to keep his desires hidden because he’s afraid of upsetting the status quo, especially because he’s a local small business owner. I liked Evan, and wanted better for him, but I never quite connected with him.
Drake slinks back into town after doing okay in Hollywood, but not as well as he would have liked. He sees Evan and recognizes him as someone he used to crush on in high school (Evan liked him too) but was too scared and shy to say anything.
I really wanted to like this story but it drove me crazy how quickly it all moved into sex. It was hot, well written sex, but this story called for a little more exploring of emotions and getting to know each other.
Maybe it was the shortness of the story that was the problem. There really wasn’t enough time to properly explore Evan’s hang ups and Drake never really was fleshed out enough for me to feel more than ambivalent about him.
I like the idea of the story, showing how staying can leave you feeling trapped into a life you can’t seem to escape from and that leaving can make you forget what home was really like. I would have liked to have seen a little more struggle on both sides and less use of sex as a filler. I do realize that it’s a romance…but romance is more than just sex.
I see a lot of potential in this author. The writing is good and the editing was as well. I just would have liked to have seen the characters a little more fleshed out so that the reader could have connected to them a little more.
I did like the humor found throughout the story though. Little bits thrown in here and there and I loved Evan’s feistiness when he confronts a fellow business owner at one point, even if I thought it happened a little fast.
A good little story that will keep you entertained and I’d take a chance and read something by this author again.
Rating: 
Buy Links: