Book Stop Corner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“Your nightmares follow you like a shadow, forever. ”



Kit Alloway, an American debut author, pens her very first YA fantasy novel, Dreamfire that happens to be the very first book in the Dreamfire series. The series unfolds the life of a teenage dream-walker who walks tens and thousands of nightmares of common people to save them from the fear of the nightmare grasping them forever. This is a no-ordinary story of a very ordinary teenager walking the dreams and nightmares and how heroically gives up her life to protect the Dream world to maintain the balance in the universe, while dealing with her own mistakes and problems.





Synopsis:

Joshlyn Weaver has always lived with a big secret. Ordinary kids spend their free time going to the movies, hanging out with friends, and searching on the internet.

But for her, an evening at home usually means entering people's dreams. For many generations, her family has been part of a very powerful and very secretive society of dream walkers. Tasked with the responsibility of lowering the world's general anxiety — which only leads to war and strife in the waking world — their job has always been to stop nightmares before they go too far.
By stopping nightmares while sleeping, they help to stop nightmares in real life.

But when an ancient feud within the dream walker society resurfaces right when a seemingly unconnected series of very strange and very scary events start occurring during her dream walks, Josh finds herself in a race against time. The one true dream walker has never been known. Could she be the one?


Josh is an average 17-year old girl who is trained at a tender age to be a dream-walker to resolve nightmares of common people thus restoring balance between the Dream World as well as The World, where we live in. At 17, every dream-walker follows a common ritual where they receive a scroll predicting their future. But this world of Dream is not that perfect, if you let the fear of the nightmare catch you, you might get caught up in the Dreamfire, or else stuck up in the dream of some human being forever. But when this dream world is threatened to wake up the True Dream Walker as per the legend, Josh along with her apprentice, Will and her friend, Haley, opens up a way to this threatening part of the dream to save her people as well as to protect the Dream World from being destroyed. Will she be able to protect it?

The author's writing style is fantastic and considering this is the author's debut book, the writing as well as the story building felt like it came out from the minds of some seasoned YA fantasy author. The world building is intricately done with lots of minute details, which I agree is bit slow, but it is necessary for the readers to gradually seep into the heart of the story.

The author has even used simple diagrams as well as Venn Diagrams to explain the difference between The World we live in as well as the Dream World and how one can traverse from one world to another and many more dream-walking legends and theories. The narrative style is eloquent and quite free-flowing, and has been kept easy for the readers to easily sync into the story.

The characters are all very well developed, especially the main character and her apprentice- Josh and Will. I must say, these two characters are bound to leave a lasting impression in the minds of the readers even after the end of the story. Josh and Will are very simple and average teens, but has a lot of determination and strength and will power to achieve extraordinary goals, even if they have to fight for it, they would rather do it. The secondary characters like Deloise, Windsor, Whim, etc are also quite strongly developed and are very real with their emotions, dialogues and demeanor. The romantic angle between Josh and Will is featured with lots of emotions and the readers can easily comprehend with this young teenage love.

Honestly, Dreamfire incited a fire within me to know more what happens next to Josh, Will and her family and friends, when the story ended with a cliffhanger. And I can't wait to read Dreamfever, the next book in the series.
In short, the book is not at all dreamy or silent as the name suggests, instead it is one hell of a roller coaster ride filled with actions, drama and evil men lurking in the nightmares, and even Hitler too!!

Verdict: A YA series that you definitely need to shelve as well as read!

Courtesy: Thanks to the author, Kit Alloway, for giving me an opportunity to read and review this book.
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Author Info:
KIT ALLOWAY lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her family and four very small dogs.
Visit her here


Book Purchase Links:

• Amazon US
• Amazon India