The Dreaming Beauty - Review

The Dreaming Beauty

By: Anneka R Walker

Expected Publication: July 11th 2022 by Covenant Communications

256 pages

Genre: Adult, Historical Fiction

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Goodreads description--Once upon a dream, two cursed people fell in love...

Tansy White doesn't want to end up alone like her three aunts who raised her, but when she is betrayed by her would-be betrothed, she fears she might never change her fate. At her aunts' suggestion, she seizes the chance to visit Rose Cottage, the country home of her late mother. For years, dreams of the cottage have haunted Tansy, and she is convinced it holds the answer to her hidden past. But after getting caught in a terrible storm, she meets a man who is just as determined as she is to learn all her secrets.

Marcus Taylor, brother to the Duke of Westmorland, is also troubled by vivid dreams. On a sleepless night, as a tempest rages outside his brother's estate, he makes a discovery far more mysterious than any dream: a young woman, cold as ice, lies unconscious in the library, and he is sure she is the key to solving his problems. When she makes, what begins as a shared quest for information turns into an unexpected friendship. As they piece together the fragments of their past, they discover a tangled web of lies, and their feelings for each other become just as entwined. But is their love as strong as their dreams. . . or their fate?

I've only read one other book by Anneka Walker--Bargaining for the Barrister--and I enjoyed it. She's not a novice author as far as I can tell since she has 14 published works (including anthologies). That being said, pieces of The Dreaming Beauty felt unpolished. I'll do my best to explain.

I wasn't sure, given the description and how certain pieces of this story are written, if this was intended to be fantasy in a historical fiction setting. I'll clear it up for you, it's not. But Tansy has dreams that sometimes seem prophetic. She dreams of Rose Cottage in vivid detail when she's never seen it before. And some other dreams appear to be prophetic, essentially warning her of something bad about to happen. Tansy's aunts all refer to a curse upon their family. The curse results in all the female aunts (sisters) being alone. One aunt's husband left her, although they claim he died. One aunt's husband did die. And one aunt is barely older than Tansy and has never married as far as I can tell. Tansy's mother died of an illness when she was very young. And there is an estranged aunt none of the family has heard from in many years.

Marcus has been plagued by dreams all his life. Nightmares. And he doesn't know how to explain them or how to get them to stop. He began to research dreams, but it was difficult to get a subject who had similarities to his own dreams until he meets Tansey. Marcus's dreams don't appear to be prophetic, but there's a mystery within them.

One of my biggest frustrations with mysteries is how side characters often have more information than the main characters. The main characters know the side characters know so much more than them, but the side characters refuse to enlighten the ones who really need the knowledge they hold. And so the story drags on. Either leaking snippets here or there or by the secondary characters holding it over their heads that one day the time will be right and all the information will be revealed. For me, this is just frustrating as a reader, and I would be quite frustrated were I the main character as well.

I found myself annoyed with Marcus and Simon. I don't understand why Marcus couldn't be open with Simon about his feelings for Tansy up front. He kept pursuing his own relationship with her even after finding out that Simon was interested in her. I don't know what his plan was. I mean he makes plans to go back to teaching in order to have a profession where he would be able to court Tansy. But he uses that as a method of escape instead. And then for Simon to say later that he knew Marcus was interested in Tansy, I don't understand pursuing someone that you know your sibling is interested in.

Favorite quotes:

-The key to learning motivation, and ultimately to uncovering truth, was to approach it as a friend, not as an inquisitor.

-The subtleties of tone, physical expression, and word choice were the manifestation of the soul.

-"I cannot resist a night's sky. Of all of God's creations, this is my favorite." Marcus let his head fall back again. "The stars are tranquil and comforting, aren't they? They see everything that happens, and while I am sure they hold the secrets of the world, they reflect only the light."

-...some lessons did not come without a degree of pain.

All in all, I was a little disappointed with The Dreaming Beauty. The mystery aspects were just frustrating. I didn't feel an excitement about discovering the secrets, I just felt annoyed that the characters that had more information weren't sharing it. I liked Marcus and Tansy's relationship, but Marcus was a bit of a dunderhead when it came to Simon's interest in Tansy. The Dreaming Beauty gets 3 Stars. Have you read The Dreaming Beauty? What did you think? Let me know!