Rurouni Jenni Reads: Blog Tour: Stay A Little Longer by Dawn Lanuza (Review)

A BIG HELLO to you book wanderer who is reading my smol book blog! Today is my stop for the international blog tour for Dawn Lanuza's latest romance novel, "Stay a Little Longer"

Props to the amazing duo of Erika of The Nocturnal Fey and Rafael of The Royal Polar Bear Reads for organizing this tour.

About the Book

They were perfect strangers—all perks, no strings. Until they weren't.

Elan wasn’t supposed to meet Caty. She lived halfway around the world, and he barely left Manila. Yet here he was, giving her a ride to the airport. Convinced that they would never have to see each other again after that day, Elan and Caty started to bond over truths, dares, stolen kisses, and games in hotel rooms and bars.

With brief encounters that turned them from acquaintances to friends — tipping to the point of lovers, always — will Elan and Caty keep settling for a day, or will someone finally dare to stay long enough to discover: Is this love?

Series: a sequel to "The Hometown Hazard" but can be read as a standalone
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Genre: adult, romance, contemporary
Publication date: May 28th, 2019
Purchase links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

About the Author

Dawn Lanuza writes contemporary romance, young adult fiction and poetry. She has two first loves – music and writing – and is lucky enough to surround herself with them.

She started to self-publish in 2014 with her debut romance novel, The Boyfriend Backtrack, which was eventually published by Anvil Publishing. In 2016, she also self-published her first poetry collection, “The Last Time I’ll Write About You” which debuted #1 on Amazon’s Hot New Releases and has stayed on its Bestsellers chart for over a year, before it was re-released into an expanded and revised edition by Andrews McMeel Publishing.

She currently travels in and out of her motherland, the Philippines, to decide which place she’d like to call home next.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

Review

My Thoughts:
Elan is getting his car back borrowed by his friend (and secret long-time crush) Jules, the main character in the author’s earlier work, “The Hometown Hazard”. It so happens that Caty, Jules’ childhood BFF, needs a ride to the airport. The meet-cute ensues when Elan lets Caty in his car. After a long ride from the town to the city, with a disastrous detour to the house of Caty’s ex, this couple of strangers kinda hit it off and ends up in an almost one-night stand. Caty shrugged off kissing Elan as her seeking some sort of validation and Elan is excessively full of self-preservation to argue with that. Of course, the readers know that they are genuinely attracted to each other. But there’s not enough time for them to hash these feelings out as Caty’s flight approaches. So starts a series of rush meetings that almost always end up in either of them caught in the throes of a trip to the airport.

“Stay a Little Longer” is a leap from the couple of books that I have read from the same author before. I already know that Dawn tastefully writes sweet kissing books but this book is a revelation that she can also pull off books with steamy bed scenes. The first few chapters of sexual tension pretty much set me up to the maddening attraction between the main couple. And the thirsty woman inside of me is not complaining with the level of heat in the bed scenes that followed, whether something actually happens or not.

Also, introducing two unlikable main characters is another gamble. When we first met Caty, she is injected with so much personality to the point of being annoying. Elan comes off to me initially as a pushover. But their seeming unlikability later plays off as byproducts of their insecurities or fears. As the book delicately peels the other facets of their characters, like Caty’s dedication to her big city dreams or Elan’s filial devotion, they become more endearing. I made a 360 flip before the book ends: the woman I thought was pesky becomes a free spirit, the man I thought was boring becomes an old soul.

The book is neatly split into four parts and an epilogue. After the meet-cute part, the next part is a kind of fantasy fluff, romance books are made of. The fantasy is summed up in a picture of two attractive people dressed to the nines, ballroom dancing with all eyes in the hall on them. The third part is my favorite because this is where the book slowly unveils the fictional ideation of romance to the reality of making a relationship actually work, especially if it’s a long-distance relationship between two people with different priorities. I really felt the frustration in these characters’ conflict that there were moments in the fourth part where I stopped believing that they could be happy together in the end. But as you know romance books persist for HEAs, so both Caty and Elan persisted, and I loved them more for it.

Diversity Watch:
Elan and Caty are both Filipinos. Filipino #ownvoices

My Rating: ★★★★☆