Dreamwalker by Andrea Heltsley
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Noel Kennedy lost her boyfriend, her job and her dignity all in one week. Then something happened and she began to dream of this stranger she had never met. She couldn’t resist the man of her dreams, named Jared, especially when she met him in real life. Entranced, she slowly unravels a world she was meant to stay out of. Her life was not what she thought it was, not once sexy Boone steps into the mix and shakes things up. Can she escape a life of servitude or immortality for a chance at love?

I have conflicting emotions about this book. On one hand I love the interaction between the characters, on the other hand, the plot development I found a little lacking.

As you already know from the premise, there is a love triangle here. They are not usually something I gravitate towards, but I found myself rooting for both sides equally in this story. By the end of the book, it is easy to accurately predict which one Noel will choose, but I have to say; given the same choice myself, I don’t know which way I would swing. They are both too great to let either one go! (yum!)

For me, the triangle actually stole the show. I found myself dying to know what the next development would be, rather than caring about where the rest of the story was taking the characters. As it turns out, this is probably a good thing since I didn’t much care for the pace of the second half.

At first, the pace is slow but steady as Noel begins to unravel secrets about herself, what she is and what she can do, and her past. Her reactions are pretty realistic, and it was nice to see things from a more adult point of view, rather than the teenage/adolescent one that is more common. Noel is in her late 20’s and lives on her own in her own apartment. Another good thing about a more adult view is, well let’s just say the intimacy scenes are more adult as well ;) I was actually impressed with how these scenes were written. Not too racy, but not innocent either.

Moving on to the second half, my main problem here is the change in gears regarding pace. It’s so radically different from the first half you kind of wonder WTH just happened?! At one point, Noel goes from complete ignorance of what’s going on, to waking from a dream, and preceding to have all sorts of knowledge regarding events from the night before based off complete assumptions, and regards them as fact to explain a key plot element. Then later in the story line, in a matter of a couple paragraphs we travel around the world and even realms. It just got to be a little discombobulating. The only thing that felt like it was holding the whole thing together was the culmination of the triangle.

I think if the flow of the second half, and the plot revelations, moved more similarly to the first half, this would have gotten four stars. The characters are awesome and I can’t wait to see how things develop with the key protagonists in the next installment.

I thank the author for letting me have a copy for an honest review.



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