Upcoming Attractions & A Book Review of Dreamspell

Next Wednesday (July 11th) marks one year since I began blogging, and I'm wearing a huge grin. Seriously, it's as much of an accomplishment for me as the day I completed my first novel.  I refused to blog for years, believing that I wouldn't have the commitment to do it and would probably run out of things to say.  But I've done it, I've suceeded, and I'm looking forward to another year of blogging fun. :-)

Thank you to all who follow my blog and leave such encouraging comments.  You are a tremendous blessing, and I hope to meet each one of you someday. :-)  To express my appreciation and celebrate my blog birthday, I'm going to host two fabulous Christian authors and give away a copy of their latest books.  Michelle Griep will be here on the 17th, and Laura Frantz will be here on the 24th. 

If you scroll through the archives, you'll find my beginning post for "Serving With Words" on September 9th, 2011.  The reason I consider July 11th my blog birthday is because that is the day I began "The Way of Impressions" -- a story I began writing live as I stepped into the blogging waters.  I didn't expect to want to publish it--I intended it to be story that would be limited to a blog--but those of you who suffered through my first draft with me inspired me to re-write, shape and mold TWOI, transforming it into a story that deserves to be printed on paper, or at least put in e-book format someday. THANK YOU, and may God bless you for being such great friends.  In honor of that crazy writing adventure, I'll post my new revised chapter one next Tuesday on the 10th.

Okay, enough of upcoming posts. :-)  My thoughts on Tamara Leigh's Dreamspell.

Time travel through dreams?  Now there's a new twist on my favorite genre niche.  I love time travel romances, and when I discovered that Tamara Leigh is a Christian author, of course I grabbed it.

Doctor Nedy Plain is dying of a brain tumor, and she's spending her last days immersed in a study of her own sleep disorder.  Finally succumbing to sleep after days of deprivation, she dreams herself into fourteenth century England where she crosses paths with Fulke Wynland, a man condemned and remembered throughout history for killing his young, orphaned nephews.  Can she stop him and save the boys' lives before her own life is spent?

Dreamspell is mainstream clean romance (not Christian fiction), and the sensuality is high in places--for example, the hero is taking a bath and the heroine walks in and stays to talk to him, and then takes a bath after him while the hero is supposedly sleeping.  I'm not used to mainstream fiction -- the characters I usually read are growing and changing spiritually throughout the book, and perhaps that missing element distanced me from Fulke and Nedy.  Nedy's attitude toward her ex-husband, Graham, bothered me. Even if he had failed to cut Mama's apron strings, Graham seemed to be a good man who loved Nedy and wanted to reconcile with her.  Failure to leave and cleave is no reason to give up on a marriage, and Nedy's choices made her seem shallow and driven by her feelings.

My nitpicking aside, Dreamspell is a fascinating story, with well-paced action and suspense.  Kudos to the author for such an imaginative, interesting read.  The epilogue was one of the best I've ever read and it had me in tears.  I'd recommend it to those who enjoy mainstream clean romances, time travel, and medieval history, and to women who have lost their hair and other womanly features to radiation treatment.  Fans of Bergren's "River of Time" series may also love this one. :-)