Between
In Between, Book #1
By Kerry Schafer
ISBN# 9780425261149
Author’s Website: http://www.kerryschafer.com/
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Dawn
*Beware of Spoilers*
Synopsis:
Vivian Maylor can’t sleep. Maybe it’s because she just broke up with her boyfriend and moved to a new town, or it could be the stress of her new job at the hospital. But perhaps it’s because her dreams have started to bleed through into her waking hours.
All of her life Vivian has rejected her mother’s insane ramblings about Dreamworlds for concrete science and fact, until an emergency room patient ranting about dragons spontaneously combusts before her eyes—forcing Viv to consider the idea that her visions of mythical beasts might be real.
And when a chance encounter leads her to a man she knows only from her dreams, Vivian finds herself falling into a world that seems strange and familiar all at once—a world where the line between dream and reality is hard to determine, and hard to control…
Review:
Between is a complicated book. You have to pay careful attention to navigate your way through it.
Vivian is a doctor and she’s very practical. Nothing fantastical touches her reality based life because she won’t let it. She refuses to allow it, until it smacks her upside the head.
Viv’s mother Isobel is just sad. I felt such sympathy for her difficult life. She and Vivian are both Dream-shifters. Because Viv won’t face that she doesn’t know enough about it to handle the situation. Due to her obstinate view, she gets a trial by fire.
In a new town, Vivian meets Zee (Ezekiel) as she peruses the town’s shops. Zee has been painting the future for years. He’s very talented and a large part of Vivian’s past and future. I had difficulty with their developing feelings for one another. I don’t feel there was enough relationship development to warrant how deeply they automatically cared for one another. Later on in the story, I realized how it happened but it didn’t seem realistic. The explanation was not sufficient.
Vivian, after a while of horrific dreams, finally admits she needs to do something. She ends up stuck in a dream state in Surmise. Most of the people in Surmise made a choice to be there but different versions of it exist with different versions of the characters through-out the story. If you’re not careful, it can be confusing.
Jehenna is a Dream-shifter as well but she wants to harm Viv. There is one helluva wallop of a plot twist relating to Jehenna. I liked how that played out.
The rape really disturbed me in the way it was handled by Schafer. I don’t believe you’d be meh about getting raped no matter who did it.
I don’t know who to recommend the book to – I never quite connected with Vivian. It’s not a bad book by any means, but nor is it outstanding. I found it to be confusing at times, less than realistic with the relationships and I never came to care for the characters other than Isobel and Poe the penguin.
