By Amanda Quick
Fiction, romance, historical fiction, suspense
Audiobook 9 hours (approx.)
Narrator Morgan Hallett
Series – Burning Cove (#6)
Expectations – I’m a longtime fan of Amanda Quick. I especially love her earlier books. Her leading ladies are strong and self-sufficient in times where it’s difficult for women to accomplish this on their own. Her books have romance, mystery, danger, and very common some supernatural elements. I have reread several of her books for years.
However, the Burning Cove series and books under her other pseudonyms can be hit or miss for me.
This book has all the elements I love in her earlier books. The confusing part for me is the assumption that lucid dreams are 1.) Profitable 2.) Have psychic properties. I had to look up the definition of lucid dreams to clarify the official meaning. The book is fantasy and takes a lot of liberties with what lucid dreaming actually entails.
Off Topic/Dream log – The night I finished listening to this book, I had to wake up early to go to work. I desperately wanted to get some sleep. I had a hard time falling or staying asleep. Every time I did fall asleep I felt like there was a psychic dream trying to take over. I would be in a normal dream and I knew they were dreams but it was like there was a dark black dream blob hovering (torso height) trying to move into my normal dreams. I fought it by waking myself up. Finally right before my alarm goes off the dark blob of psychic dreams wins. I had relaxed enough in the normal dream that the dream blob was able to play its content. It was something benign and I felt a release and relaxation that it was finally over. I immediately try to remember what the psychic dream was but can only recall having a selection of food in a sun filled kitchen.
Back to the book –
At one a point in the book, the leading lady suggests to someone that has painted their nightmare dreamscape to paint two more. One with a beautiful light filled landscape and one with a hall with two doors. The idea is to stop yourself when dreaming in the nightmare landscape, open the door to the hallway and then use the other door to go to the light filled dreamscape. That actually sounds like something a lucid dreamer with reoccurring nightmares could try. Most of everything else is suspect.
– Spoiler –
I do love a nicely wrapped up happy ending. However, this leading lady has no business getting married. Her reasoning was sound when she didn’t get married the first time.