Review: Characters seem to phone in their appearances for the first two thirds of the book
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 21, 2014
The premise of this novella was what drew me in. I have a long love/hate relationship with dreams, and have given lucid dreaming a try in an effort to control my own nightmares. So I wasn't really surprised when this story bore little resemblance to actual methods of lucid dreaming. It's fiction, after all, right? Dreams are complex and nebulous things that have eluded understanding for as long as humans have been dreaming. Therefore, it's forgivable that there seems to have been little to no research into the mechanics of dreams. Forgivable, but disappointing.What's less forgivable, though, is the short shrift these poor characters receive. The heroine is a cardboard cutout up until 68% of the way through the story. It takes that long for her personality to emerge, but when it does emerge, she's witty, sassy, and thoroughly likeable. What a shame she wasn't present for the entire story. The hero shows up on page one as a sinister character who seems as nebulous as the dreams he polices. Is he sliding down into madness? Is he trapped in a job that makes him one of the bad guys? What is he hiding from his...boss? coworker? friend? There's even a sly suggestion that he bats for both teams - not that being bisexual would have thrown me, but why even mention that guys find him as attractive as girls do? Sure enough, though, he perks up around the same time the heroine does, just in time for a charming physical interlude that, while not quite sweet, was pretty mild in comparison with much of the contemporary romance genre.The fact that I genuinely liked these characters when they finally showed up in their own story is the only reason I plan to read the second installment of the series. One hopes that, having spent 100 pages laying the groundwork, Maisie and Steve just might deign to pop up in living color from the beginning of their own story.I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.