Dream Riders

Dream riders.

Imagine being able to enter a persons mind while they dream? Then not just watching their dream but activley being able to manipulate and control what a person dreams?

That is the awesome power that Corey and Marci have and it attracts some unwanted attention. Not just from encentric unstable millionaires but from the very demons that haunt our worse nightmares.

I love the concept of this book and story and it has a lot of potential to be expanded into a multi book series. The dreamworld is a place where reality ceases to exist and our minds can delve into the impossible and non sensical. The possiblities are limitless and I think Taylor Kole has tapped into a very intriguing idea here.

One thing however that I think could have made the story better is spending more time establishing the Dream Riding business as our main characters Corey and Marci seem to get into their trouble after essentially 1 client. This seemed to be a bit too quick for me and establishing dream riding and how it works a bit more, at least for me, would have made the story better. But then I like getting into in depth details of how things work within a story. Thats just my personal preference and by no means a reflection on the writers style.

Now for the characters.
Corey tends to see things in a more spiritual supernatural view point believing the demons to be reality and apart from the minds of the dreamers. This makes him fearful and I think irrational in his desire to avoid dream riding with those who seem to have these demons.
This seems to stem from his background in philosphy dealing with the intangible ideas

Marci by contrast is the more scientfically minded and views these demons as nothing more than essentailly figments of the dreamers mind. She is more focused on the money and success that can come from dream riding which blinds her to the danger they are facing till its too late.

Walter. A maniacle rich lunatic. He discovers the power of dreamriding and wants to control it for himself. He is a man with a massive ego and takes rejection as a personal assault. His self interest motivated desire over rules his reason leading to his eventual demise.

Overall the characterization was Ok. They were not terrible but they also werent in depth, this in no way makes them bad or poorly written characters neccessarily. The behaved exactly as I would expect them to.

When their daughter was kidnapped they were naturally worried and angry but aside from the reading being told thats how they felt their was not alot within to book showing thats how they felt. Perhaps some emotional tear filled scenes between marci and corey, sleepless nights or a few scenes of their own nightmares about their daughter. Maybe with the demon from walts dreams present.

A few scenes from their daughters perspective and what she was going through, crying for her parents etc... would for me certainly enhance the story. Or maybe a scene where Corey and Marci get into their daughters dream from distance using the parental bond as some kind of bridge without physical cotnact etc..

I think this sort of thing would have gone a long way to improving the story and help the reader more effectively empathize with the characters and what they were going through.

But in the end I don't think the story needed extensive characterization and in depth backgrounds neccessarily. I feel like this book sets the stage for further dream riding stories and with that further character development. This is a good starting point. And I feel like there is a lot of potential behind this concept and this book as a launching point for a series.

If more Dreamriding books are written I look forward to seeing Marci and Corey develop as characters and how dream riding influences that developement.

Overall 3 stars. Great story. Excellent concept. Lots of potential.