Fearsome Drea
mer by Laure Eve
Genre: Techno-Fantasy, Romance
Published By: Hot Key Books
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★★★★
Series: The Illusionists (#2)
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon
Laure Eve has created a beautifully original new genre of book, combining fantasy, technology and romance in a stunning debut novel that could not have been more satisfying.
Although the blurb suggests the story is told from Rue’s perspective, it is not only Rue’s mind we inhabit. Two other characters, both male, White and Frith offer their thoughts up to the scrutiny of readers, adding to the well roundedness of the novel. Each character has such an action packed story line, I would have been completely happy to have read individual books about each character.
Rue is a girl who was training to be a hedgewitch but felt that she was not as well suited to the role and knew that she had a power that made her different to other people in Angle Tar, the remote island where she lived, that had separated itself from World.
World is the rest of the world; countries that have come together, united under the technology of Life, sort of like a simulator that means travel is no longer an object and people can just connect to Life in order to meet others, shop, go to school, everything! White lived in World, but was being persecuted for his powers, the same powers Rue possessed, but he dealt with them with a lot more experience. He wished to seek the refuge of Angle Tar, a place that would not threaten a prison sentence for being a Talented individual.
Frith is a government agent, working to recruit Talented people like Rue and White in order to train them to be used for government means. Undertones of evil, I suspect.
Sometimes when a story is told from multiple perspectives in can be clumsy and ineffective, yet Eve’s characters wove together perfectly and the POV changed at just the right moments in order to gain the biggest scope of the story world.
I was expecting more love story between Rue and White, because their romance was tantalizingly forbidden by society. Neither Rue nor White would admit they had feelings for each other, leading to ultimate distress at the end of the novel for White in particular. But I think Eve has left it at a dramatic place for the next book – fingers crossed they’ll actually get the kisses they both crave!
Slowly, we were fed information about Angle Tar and World from a variety of sources and an emphasis was placed on choosing whom to believe. My advice: never trust people with unnatural eye colours. They’re just looking for trouble.
I loved the ambiguity surrounding the government and their involvement in things. Sometimes when explanations are too explicit it’s easy to see how the characters are going to react to the corruption but ‘Fearsome Dreamer’ left a lot unsaid which just made me want to read more and more. What’s the ‘Castle’? Why is there a ‘Ghost Girl’? Who are these people? Who am I?
Overall, I’d say that ‘Fearsome Dreamer’ is like nothing else out there. I never knew where the book was going to take me, literally, and loved the sense of surprise with each new development. I feel I’ve really discovered a gem with this book and can’t wait to read the sequel ‘The Illusionists’ in August (which could not come soon enough!) Did I mention that the covers are beautiful? I need this book constantly on display so I can bask in its beauty for as long as possible.
I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone that is willing to try something different compared to the popular ‘girl vs government’ dystopians that are flooding the shelves at the moment.
Rating: 4.5 stars Can’t be given 5 because I was not emotionally fulfilled with Rue and White’s relationship. More information needed! (and more dancing too, that was cute.)
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