Book Blurb:Vivian Maylor can’t sleep. Maybe it’s because she just broke up with her boyfriend and moved to a new town, or it could be the stress of her new job at the hospital. But perhaps it’s because her dreams have started to bleed through into her waking hours.
All of her life Vivian has rejected her mother’s insane ramblings about Dreamworlds for concrete science and fact, until an emergency room patient ranting about dragons spontaneously combusts before her eyes—forcing Viv to consider the idea that her visions of mythical beasts might be real.
And when a chance encounter leads her to a man she knows only from her dreams, Vivian finds herself falling into a world that seems strange and familiar all at once—a world where the line between dream and reality is hard to determine, and hard to control…
WARNING: While it is handled tastefully, a sexual abuse scenario does happen in this book. For some women this is not a topic they are comfortable reading about so I thought you might want to know. I found it to be something I was able to move past and enjoy the book later.
Vivian is an ER Doctor who has started to see some very strange things, both in her dreams and in the ER. The problem is, her dreams seem to be bleeding over into her work life and people are dying of bizarre symptoms that match what happened in her dreams. She has an ex-boyfriend who is getting more and more difficult to deal with, people are breaking into her house, searching for something, a powerful witch wants something from her and isn’t going to take no for an answer, and a handsome book store owner/artist she has never met before, has written a book with a painting of her on the cover that he gives her when she shows up in his shop and he tells her he’s been waiting for her for ten years.
Vivian, in short…has problems. Serious problems and they get more complex, more confusing and dare I say it…more dreamlike the longer you read the book. What I loved about the book was its ability to take surreal situations and make them seem real. It is a lyrical, beautifully written story that keeps you with its many twists and turns and at times confusing dream sequences. Vivian is a strong woman who doesn’t make stupid decisions, she survives. She comes back from a savage attack, deals with horrific family problems that are deeply personal and strongly magical in nature and rolls with the fact she is suddenly thrust into a starring role in a completely different world, one in which her dreams can actually kill people.
Where I struggled was in the doppleganger aspects of some people being in two places at the same time and actually being two people at the same place/time. I’m pretty sure there are some space-time continum issues that would come into play here and anyone who grew up listening to Jean Luc Piccard knows you want to avoid that. Not to immediatly roll into another TV refernce, but there is almost a similarity to the TV series “Once Upon A Time” with people being Faery tale characters and also living in the real world. In this case, the lines between dreams and reality can seriously get blurred and I found, especially at the end, the roles confusing. How can you be alive in two places as the same time, be two different people, and yet have a glimmer of a memory of yourself being that other person? So that was confusing to me.
But the pluses make up for that minus. The story moves along at a swift pace that grabs you and doesn’t let you down. Her side kick is awesome and damned original. There were so many twists to the story and plot and as this is just the beginning of the series, I expect the author has some more in place which will be revealed in time. Between is an elegantly plotted, beautifully written, Faery tale of an Urban Fantasy novel, with heartbreaking love stories tucked away into little worlds, crafted from the dreams of the author and the main character.
http://dangerousromance.com/?p=3560