Rating: 5 ‘Kieran’ Stars

Publisher: Cambria Hebert Books, LLC

Genre: Gay Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Age Gap (8 Years), Fake Boyfriend (ish), Humor, Insta-Love/Obsession, Opposites Attract, Romance, Series

Length: 392 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and being in the hospital with stitches in my head and no way out makes me pretty desperate. So I log in to a dating app, searching for a guy willing to pretend to be my boyfriend so I can bust out of this overpriced nightmare.
But what do I get?
Accused of being a prostitute. Talk about a waste of phone minutes.
With plan A a no-go, I move on to plan B. Escape. Except, on my way to freedom, I’m nearly pummeled by a man wearing all black and with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.
When he pretends to be my boyfriend, I’m shook. And even more shook when I discover this is the rude guy from the app.
Turns out he’s not only rude but bossy, irritable, and he keeps calling me a walking hazard. I go along with the lie anyway, thinking I can ditch him as soon as I’m free.
Except that doesn’t happen.
I end up back at his place, eating soup and trying hard not to catch feelings.
Then my apartment is broken into, and I’m running for my life, confused, injured, and with nowhere else to go. Kieran vows to keep me safe, something he seems more than capable of… Which is kinda odd for a real estate agent, right?
As the threat to my life intensifies, I start to wonder if I’ll make it to my next birthday and, more importantly, if trusting Kieran is the deadliest hazard of all.

Tropes:
Broody, possessive MMC
Clumsy, anxious MMC
Touch him and die
Hitman falls first (and harder)
Size difference
Dude in distress
Suspense
Hidden identity
Hospital meet cute (or not)
Mafia

Micro-Tropes:
Heterochromia
“Baby doll”
Plant daddy
Fish daddy

Review –

Blood and death were of no consequence to me until I had something to lose.

It’s been a while since I’ve picked up a book that I didn’t want to put down for even a minute once I started reading it. That was definitely the case with The Hazard And The Hitman. This is my favorite read of 2026 so far. It has humor, interesting and fun characters, and a couple of really good stories happening at the same time.

Hazier, aka Hazard to Kieran, 22, has just had a serious car accident. He’s in the hospital, but the doctor won’t let him be discharged because he has a serious concussion, and he needs someone with him. The problem? Haz literally has nobody. He grew up as an orphan, and has no family to speak of. He has a neighbor he’s somewhat friendly with, but that’s it. So, what does Haz do? He gets on a dating app, matches with someone, then asks them if they’ll pretend to be his boyfriend just long enough for him to get sprung from the hospital. They go back and forth, with the other guy, who turns out to be Kieran, calling him a prostitute. Haz ends up leaving the guy on read because his prepaid phone runs out of minutes at that exact time.

When the dating app thing doesn’t work, Haz decides to sneak out. He makes it just far enough to bump into someone who won’t let him leave. That someone? That would be Kieran. Why, you ask? Because he was left on read, something Keiran didn’t take too kindly to. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that Haz was hot in his dating app profile pic, or the fact that he has beautiful eyes; one green, one blue.

Definitely not your average meet-cute.

Kieran takes charge, ensures that Haz finishes getting the care he needs, pays for it without blinking, then takes him home with him, something fiesty Haz pretty much fights all along the way. He’s super independent, and Kieran may be hot, but he could be a serial killer for all he knows, which is funny because Kieran is a hitman. He tells Haz he’s in real estate.

I’m so used to reading books where the stronger, more bad-ass character is the one who takes a while to fall. It was refreshing to see Kieran decide Haz was his, and that was that. It just took Haz a little longer to get that memo.

Even with stitches and a concussion, Haz is determined to take care of himself. He has 4 jobs and he can’t afford to not show up. Kieran, a multi-millionaire, has other ideas, and they include keeping Haz with him all the time, and not just temporarily. When I say Kieran falls hard, I mean he falls fast, like instant fast.

They were so cute together, and the sex was off the charts. They tried to be careful, but somehow the author still made it super hot. Throw in that Haz is a big klutz, so there are a few extra little injuries thrown in along the way.

There is one particular sex scene that’s pretty intense, maybe a little dub-con, but Haz is more turned on by it than hurt.

Someone wants Haz dead, and they want it done now. He doesn’t know this until his apartment is ransacked, and later, he’s shot at. In the midst of it all, a mafia boss wants to hire Kieran to kill Haz, offering several millions of dollars to make it happen. Yeah, no. Kieran, even after only a day or two, would literally rather take a bullet himself than harm his little ‘Hazard’.

I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop when Haz found out about Kieran’s real profession, but it never did. It was a cute scene that involved their funny banter that had started the minute they met.

“Aren’t you afraid of me?” I asked.

“Should I be?”

“Yes!” I roared.

He made a face. “Well, I’m not.”

“Why?” I demanded. Most men pissed their pants when they saw me coming.

“Because you’re mine.”

Oh, my damn. Did he just claim me? No one had ever claimed me before.

There are other characters who are important to the story, Ghost for one. Ghost was absolutely hilarious. He’s Kieran’s best friend, though, like Haz, Kieran’s convinced he has no friends. Both were so clueless in an adorable way.

“I don’t have a type,’ I said, pushing him back into his seat.

“Yeah, because up until two days ago, you didn’t have a heart,” he cracked.

There’s also Rett, Haz’s not-friend neighbor, and Cliff and Atlas, Kieran’s almost-dead plants, who Haz brings back to life.

Kieran was a really bad plant daddy, but he was an amazing fish daddy. You’d have to read the book to get it.

Kieran is also a major neat freak, something that was hilarious as Haz burst into his world with nothing but chaos.

Killing people must make him grumpy. Which, fair.

Everything in this book happens insta-fast, a few days fast, with the ‘L’ word being spoken in almost no time at all. It didn’t seem like it was that quick because there was a lot of action in between.

Then there are Kieran’s endearments for Haz. I’m from the South, so endearments are as normal as breathing for me, but some authors tend to go overboard. Not in this case, in my opinion. Haz was Kieran’s ‘baby’ and ‘baby doll’ from almost the very beginning. I found it to be so sweet, not overkill. I loved his ‘mine’ attitude, and Haz’s futile resistance to it. He was as sucked in as Kieran was.

The mystery of who was trying to have Haz killed and why was pretty easy to figure out early on, but it didn’t take away from the story at all.

I’ve never read this author before this book, so I took a big chance by downloading it. I have to say that I was hooked from the very first page, and I stayed that way until the very end. There’s mystery, funny banter between all the characters, both main and secondary, and an amazing romance between two very different and independent men. I absolutely loved it. I can’t wait to read Ghost’s story, that I really hope will be published sooner rather than later.

I’ve checked out the author’s other books, and a majority are either M/F series or M/F and M/M mixed series. I’m not a fan of series that mix hetero and gay romance. I read gay romance because it’s what I prefer. I don’t like switching it up when het romance is no longer my genre of choice. I hate it, honestly, because I really enjoyed this author’s writing style, and was hoping I’d found a new author to read.

I’ll be impatiently waiting for Ghost’s story. I already know who his love interest will be.

5 ‘Kieran’ stars.

Great book.