Judith‘s review of Dreamscaper’s Desire by Lani Aames
Carmen dreams of a handsome, sexy man who fulfills all her fantasies. His touch ignites her body and makes her soar to new heights of fiery sensation. But Nicodemus is merely a dream, isn’t he? A figment of her imagination conjured in her sleep because there is no real man in her mundane life. When Carmen comes to the difficult decision to find a way to give up her dream lover, a friend tells her about a place where sleep habits and dreams are studied. Sounds like exactly what Carmen needs.
Nicodemus spends hot, sweaty nights locked in Carmen’s embrace, making all her dreams come true. There he finds true peace and love. But Nic knows demons can also escape through Carmen’s dreams and he’s fighting to keep the real world from turning into a nightmare.
Scientific studies over the past several decades have shown reliable evidence that the human subconscious mind is far more extensive than the conscious mind–some even believe it forms nearly nine-tenths of the minds capacity. Modern psychoanalysis also has demonstrated that there are many memories, a lot of past stuff–both good stuff and some significant life garbage–that continues to reside in the subconscious and which can have an impact on decisions and responses in life, whether or not a person may be aware of those influences. These are some of the thoughts I had while reading this short story. Obviously the world of dreams is one that fascinates many people as does the demonic. Can evil find a portal through the human subconcious? It seems to me that such is the case in this short story.
I think there is another aspect of this short story that catches my interest, namely the fact that most people today trust almost any entity if it purports to be scientific and especially related to scientific research. That a research faciility doing sleep study and dream study is a “front” for discovering dream portals for the demonic doesn’t enter into most people’s awareness. It certainly turned out to be the case in this story. And Carmen is up to her eyeballs in bad stuff as this story moves forward.
There is a tender and caring love story at the core of this tale, one that proves to be more than Carmen every expected. That her dream lover proved to be real was indeed a surprise and one that she was delighted to learn. Certainly most of us would be completely “thrown” if the subject of an erotic dream turned out to be someone who really existed, especially if it was someone we had not previously known. So there is a lot of hot loving in this story but there is some fairly scarry bad stuff, too. Pure evil is never really easy to encounter and I think most readers can easily put themselves in Carmen’s shoes when she responds with horror at being used by a so-called scientific research study to bring pure evil into the world.
This is indeed the world of romance fantasy and fans of that genre will most assuredly like this short story. It is indeed short, but the author has managed to stuff the tale with a number of interesting characters and lots of action. It is, at its core, a love story, and Carmen and Nic are truly the kind of caring and deeply committed lovers we all enjoy encountering. The tension between saving their relationship or possibly having to say good-bye to one another–they are, after all, from two different worlds–is never really absent, and when complicated by the presence of evil that could conceivably take over Carmen as a means of entrance into contemporary earth life, — well the tension becomes quite apparent.
This is a short but very diverting read. It is the kind of fantasy that doesn’t absorb lots of time or energy but can be very satisfying to those who enjoy romantic fantasy writing. I think it is a well-written piece and comes from an author who has had a number of works published. That, of course, wouldn’t necessarily insure that it is good, but I think it is so very readable–the characters are able to stand on their own while relating to the others in the story– and while the plot is in many ways the classis “good versus evil” kind of construction, it still has the feel of an original and well-thought-out piece of writing.
There is certainly an erotic quality to this piece and romance fans and lovers of fantasy will like this work. I give it a rating of 3.75 out of 5.
You can read more from Judith at Dr. J’s Book Place.
This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy it here in e-format.
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