Dawn Over Dayfield

*I received this novel as a freely accessible e-ARC from Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.*

Dawn Over Dayfield by Karenna Colcroft features Andy Forrest who visits the town of Dayfield to find out more about his birth father. While researching the historical records, he meets the local History Society archivist Weston Thibeault. Together they attempt to unearth secrets the town wants to keep buried. The novel is part mystery, part romance, and the latter part I really did enjoy, despite the fact it developed kind of fast. However, considering the events it is actually sort of believable. Very refreshing.

The writing style was fairly decent and for the majority of the book I was engrossed in the plotline.  Unfortunately, there was a lot of repetition about the townsfolk absolutely hating Andy’s family, which is the main premise of the novel. A contributing factor to this hatred was that the factory, which had always been extremely important to the town, had been owned and bankrupted by Andy's birth father's family. Although it is understandable that this would have a huge impact on the town, it just didn't make sense why the residents' hatred of the owners would extend to a son who was adopted and had never even visited the area before. Especially since there was a living member of the family (the protagonist’s biological grandmother), but she was left completely alone and then swiftly forgotten about in the narrative. If a person is really interested in the family history, then visiting the actual grandmother would make the most sense, no? Then again, maybe I missed an explanation about why that wasn’t done.

I also felt that the last third of the book was just too rushed and things didn’t make sense anymore. The mystery aspect was really the biggest weakness, perhaps. Everything seemed to be very predictable and obvious – and I’m not even that seasoned of a mystery reader! The big “showdown” towards the end just felt extremely random and I got the sense that all the build-up didn’t lead anywhere. Some loose ends were then suddenly mentioned and tied up in the last chapter so I was left dazed and confused as to the aim of the aforementioned climactic scene. Having read plenty of Nora Roberts, I know that suspense in romance books can be done extremely well, which is where this novel fell slightly short in my opinion.

All in all, even though I was interested in the events of the novel until the very end, I just felt that this particular mystery left a lot to be desired. I do no regret reading it, but the novel itself was average, hence the three stars. However, I would definitely be interested in trying out the author’s other gay romances.