Reviewed by Taylor

TITLE: Beautiful Dreamer
AUTHOR: Sam Singer
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 220 pages
BLURB: From the time he was a child, Nicholas Crittendon, oft-overlooked second son of the Duke of Sanburne, has been outcast because of his fascination with the myth of the Lost Kingdom. As legend has it, the entire population was wiped from existence when its prince was cursed by an evil sorceress into a deathlike sleep.

Convinced that the Lost Kingdom is real, Nicholas devotes his days to reading and research, trying to pinpoint its location. As he grows older, his nights become haunted with dreams of a blond, green-eyed young man calling to Nicholas for help. Nicholas’s interest spirals into an obsession that drives him away from the comfort and safety of his life and toward the unknown of his dreams. Those slumbering visions may hold the key to everything he’s searched for and a lover he never believed could be real.

A Timeless Dreams title: While reaction to same-sex relationships throughout time and across cultures has not always been positive, these stories celebrate M/M love in a manner that may address, minimize, or ignore historical stigma.

REVIEW:

This is a m/m take on the classic Sleeping Beauty.  Ian is a young prince gifted to his parents by a sorceress, who curses the boy at a celebration one night.  Before the fall of his 19^th birthday, the prince will eat a piece of candy and fall into sleep.  Sara, a sorceress close with the family cannot undo the curse, but mends it and tells Ian’s family that Ian will one day awake – but only by the kiss of his true love.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book, and Sleeping Beauty is one of my all-time favorite tales, but this had a very, unexpected twist to it.  Yes, the prince eats the candy and falls asleep.  Yes, Sara puts the whole kingdom under a sleeping spell as well, until Ian wakes up.  But where this differs is 200 years pass and what was once a thriving, peaceful kingdom becomes ‘lost’.  The people and the land become a source of fable and what parents expand on to put their children to sleep as a bedtime story.

Nicholas has grown up with this tale, and he’s always been drawn the story and its legend.  At the same time, he dreams each night and he sees himself with a beautiful, green-eyed boy.  They are playmates, friends, and eventually lovers and husbands.  He wakes up every night unable to remember the boy’s name, and as time passes, so does the pull of the Lost Kingdom legend grow stronger.  He falls in love with the boy in his dreams.  He knows he’s not real, but he feels real.  His lover begs Nicholas to save him, to not forget about him, to find him.  One night after many years, Nicholas awakes and remembers the boy’s name…Ian.

This is a sweet, soul mates story that makes you feel as if you are curled up in a blanket on a cold night.  Nothing too terrible happens, nothing terribly funny or frightening happens, but the love between Ian and Nicholas is consistent throughout and lovely.  And despite not getting an abundance of dialogue between the two or actually watching them fall in love in a traditional sense; I still believed in them.  The chasing scenes in the dreams were beautiful.  That was something as they aged that never changed and I could clearly see them when described.

I also particularly liked that the story didn’t end right with a kiss or an awakening.  The two had to distinguish between their dream selves and the real world.  It was a nice touch.  Overall, I loved this and the nostalgia of the original tale made me smile.

Taylor rates it –

BUY LINKS: Dreamspinner Press

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Taylor is one of the official reviewers on The Blog of Sid Love.

To read all her reviews, click the link: TAYLOR’S REVIEWS
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