The Waking Dreamer

Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this book through netgalley.com

The Waking Dreamer caught my eye due to the lyrical nature of the title and cover. This is a coming of age/coming into being story about Emmet, who's “adopted” and trying to find his place in the world. We first meet him as he's making his way out of Houston, heading into Florida. The story quickly veers off into urban fantasy when Emmet runs into a Druidic group called “The Children,” who work in tandem with Druids (seemingly the warrior class of the group) and a Bard (the seemingly magical user who directs magic with their voice). In this one night, Emmet's world is turned upside down as he's pulled into a plot between the Druids, himself, and those called the Underdwellers (who are aligned with The Old Ones).

This book introduces us to the overview of the good guys and bad guys and shares with us the powers that Emmet himself holds. It doesn't really tell us flat out what will happen if Emmet goes bad... just that it could be the end of everything we know.

As one who has many friends in the ADF ( a real druidic order), I loved how this book sort of blends the fantasy world in with some reality. Druids are real, they do have some of the ideas that this book contains (albeit very different from the fantasy one): like druidic orders do have Bardic subsets. They also believe in a concept very similar to the underdwellers. The first few chapters are very lyrical in nature and it really sucked me right into the world. The book does take place (in part) here in portland, OR and i've always been fond of books that feature my beloved town.

Bottom Line: If you like your urban fantasy with some magic realism mixed in, then you'll love this book. The writing is crisp and the characters and group dynamic are intriguing. I hope that Alexander is able to continue with the next volume, for I'd love to see what happens with Emmet and the others.