Reviewed:
The author obviously has a lot of talent and is a very good writer. The story started out very interesting as it's based on a fascinating idea and technically it's very good. It starts out as romantic erotica but unfortunately it turns into a dark and disturbing horror story.
Some of the content is too brutal and detailed - torture, abuse, rape, murder - which is too dark and disturbing to belong in a romantic erotic story in my opinion. For me it seems too disturbing at times and that spoils the parts of the story intended to inspire arousal and/or feelings of love. I don't think these opposite concepts - romantic love/sex and the other stuff - belong in the same story and the changes made on the focus in the 2nd and 3rd parts make sense to me.
It was difficult for me to finish this story...I started to increasingly skim through more and more of the content as the story progressed and I won't be reading parts 2 and 3. I wish the author used appropriate tags to warn potential readers...rape, torture, child abuse, etc.
Reviewed:
Wow. Another truly amazing story hidden away in the archives. A teen boy discovers that he can navigate into other people's dreams. With the help of his sister and another young girl, he sets out to help others, and leads the way for the FBI's pursuit of a previously undetected serial killer. This is apparently the first of 3 stories in this series.
The plot of the story is amazingly good. The sex scenes are not there necessarily for stroke purposes, but rather to develop the characters and the storyline. This is a paranormal/young adult story with decidedly adult themes. A score of 10 is well-earned.
For technical score, this is the one place the story falters, but only a bit. A few wrong homophones (lightening/lightning, too/to, wry/rye, etc), a few missed words, all subtract from the final score, giving it an A (8).
For personal appeal, I give this somewhere between an A+ (9), and an outstanding 10. Why not higher? Because as mentioned, this is the first book in a trilogy. I have not read the rest yet. Frankly, taking out the scenes that do not appeal to me (I really am not into abuse and BDSM) would simply damage the story too much. This was an excellent read, and I recommend it to all.