Life couldn’t get any better.

A new baby, the promotion, the new house – everything is finally going his way. A happy family and the comfortable life don’t last long, though, once they start receiving visits from something that he does not understand. Or even believe.

His daughter, Little Olivia, is troubled by visions of a monster that only she can see.

He lurks in the shadows and lives on the edge of their perception, just out of sight, and sneaks in to steal the happiness from their dreams. But their frightening encounters with the unexplained serve only as a distraction, a break from the uncomfortable truth, will it be too late for him to realize what he has so easily forgotten?

Sometimes the things we need to fear most are closer than we expect.

Purchase Link: Amazon.com

Goodreads: Daddy Monster

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Review

*I received a copy for free in exchange for an honest review*

Rating: 2 stars

One family’s suburban dreams are shattered when their young daughter starts being tormented by nightmares that are seemingly a little too real. Desperate to protect his daughter, a father must face the monsters that terrify his little girl.

I was really drawn by the summary of this novel. It sounded like a really great horror story, just the kind of book that I like to read. The author is a good writer. There was a wealth of description and vocabulary use. The style was dark in keeping with the genre.

However unfortunately I did not enjoy it at all. For me there were several things that meant that I just couldn’t get into it. One was the lack of names of the main characters. Only the daughter, Olivia, was named. The mother and father were not. For me a name is so important for forming an attachment to a character or even just being able to relate to them. This put me on the wrong-foot with this novel to begin with. The second thing was it was just so confusing. It went on and on with drawn out events that added no real value to the plot and just served to confuse. It jumped about all over the place and I could not follow what was going on at all, which was incredibly frustrating. The lack of names (and some characters were only referred to with unpleasant nicknames!) just added to this confusion and I nearly didn’t finish the book as a result.

When I finished it, I was left feeling rather disappointed that unfortunately this book was not for me.

Oak Grove, Georgia
It’s a tiny mountain town where nothing ever seemed to happen.

Until dreams began to come true. Dreams that could more aptly be called nightmares. Monsters, wild animals, nefarious traps, anything is possible. No one is safe. The only thing they have in common is a teenage girl, Natalie Mullin, who dreams about each new horror as they happen. But why does she dream of them? And can she stop them before she dreams of everyone she loves?

For when she lays her head to rest, it’s your life that’s put to the test.

Purchase Link: Amazon.com

Goodreads: The Dreamer

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Review

*I received a copy for free in exchange for an honest review*

Rating: 4 stars

A series of strange incidents and unexplained deaths have a small town’s police department baffled. Unable to explain what is going on, they struggle to find a rational explanation or solve each case. The only thing that the events all have in common is that a teenage girl claims to have dreamed about them before they happened.  At first Natalie Mullin discounts her strange and disturbing dreams. However when she realises that they are a foreshadowing of events, she desperately searches for answers and a way to stop them before it’s too late for everyone whom she cares about.

The Dreamer is a really suspenseful and page-turning horror novel. Rather than focusing primarily on one character’s point of view, you see events through the eyes of victims and protagonists. The author took their time to develop each character and I really enjoyed the dark humour added in, which gave even more life to each personality.

I enjoyed how the events unfolded slowly with the right amount of building up to the finale. I thought I knew what direction it would take, but I was proved wrong in the last act. The ending caught me by surprise and left me with that feeling that I sometimes get in cinema after watching a really good horror film. Slightly shocked and unnerved, but in a good way.

I definitely recommend The Dreamer to horror fans.