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Sweet Dreams
The last thing Megan Montgomery wants to do is go to the police and tell them she's having horrible nightmares again that just happen to be coming true. But she hesitated to believe and a woman died. She hesitated to act and another woman died. Now she sees no other choice but to go to the police. Even if that ends up being a nightmare in itself. Detective David Stark doesn't really believe the psychic who called him with information concerning a murder that has yet to happen, but for some reason he just can't get the things she told him out of his head. When he finds a victim's body, exactly as she said it would be, he knows she is the only real lead he has in the most important case of his career. What he doesn't know is how he's going to keep his hands to himself until the madman from her nightmares is behind bars. Can a woman who's not sure life is worth living and a cynical cop who doesn't believe in anything he can't touch work together to find a monster before he adds the last piece of human flesh to his grotesque creation?
245 pages, Paperback
First published March 3, 2005
51 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 8, 2024
I found this book at a local indie author book fair. The author was so sweet and engaging so I took a chance and bought a copy. I'm so glad I did. I'm a sucker for a serial killer whodunnit especially with a hunky lead detective and a beautiful, if complicated, clairvoyant eye witness. Considering it's less than 399 pages DL Edwards packed enough story in there to make it through but also fast paced. I will keep an eye on this author for sure.
July 3, 2025
most read!!
Oh my God, I cannot believe this is not a series. I read more than I watch TV because TV has just become a cesspool. My mood kind of dictates what I read. Here lately I have been in the Detective/FBI with a little love throwing in and it’s kinda hard to find that you have a lot of FBI, but it rarely comes with a romantic interest.
Oh my God, I cannot believe this is not a series. I read more than I watch TV because TV has just become a cesspool. My mood kind of dictates what I read. Here lately I have been in the Detective/FBI with a little love throwing in and it’s kinda hard to find that you have a lot of FBI, but it rarely comes with a romantic interest.
February 27, 2023
This book has mystery, spice and a thrilling story. I love seeing a paranormal/ supernatural twist on a police procedural story. Having the main character having dreams that later come true is a really great convention to use in order to make this story feel like the stakes are incredibly high!
March 6, 2023
Great read!
An interesting storyline. I enjoyed the interaction between the characters as they sought to solve the crimes of the deranged serial killer. The story was built slowly holding my interest as each new clue was uncovered. Worth the read.
An interesting storyline. I enjoyed the interaction between the characters as they sought to solve the crimes of the deranged serial killer. The story was built slowly holding my interest as each new clue was uncovered. Worth the read.
June 20, 2022
Cheesy and predictable
I had a hard time finishing this one. The idea was amazing, the follow through not so much. There wasn't much substance at all. Disappointing.
I had a hard time finishing this one. The idea was amazing, the follow through not so much. There wasn't much substance at all. Disappointing.
September 8, 2024
excellent
This was a very good book. I wish the author would write another one. Interesting plot line and very good descriptions.
This was a very good book. I wish the author would write another one. Interesting plot line and very good descriptions.
December 23, 2010
D. L. Edwards, Sweet Dreams (iUniverse, 2005)
I picked this up at a local Half Price Books a couple of months ago from the horror section (where it didn't belong; this is a police procedural/mystery). As always, I was well behind on my reading, and didn't get round to it until just now. I had entirely missed that the book is inscribed to Brian and Joe, a pair of local radio personalities who've been around for dog's years. (One of them, for those of you who value trivia, is related to Adrian Cronauer, the DJ whose life was the very loose basis for the film Good Morning, Vietnam.) Which has nothing at all to do with D. L. Edwards' book, but it makes for an amusing cocktail-party story. So grab your martini and let's talk Sweet Dreams. The first thing to note about it is the publisher, iUniverse. I can already hear the groans from the peanut gallery. “Another vanity-published monstrosity! Save us!” And I admit, if you haven't been exposed to as much vanity-pubbed material as I have and you pick up a random iU book, you probably have some basis for that statement. But as with all things, if you wade through enough swine you're going to find a few pearls. From a technical standpoint, Sweet Dreams is surprisingly well put-together, which is kind of amazing; either Edwards hired a professional editor or she's good enough to be one herself.
Plot: Megan Montgomery is a psychic, and she's not at all happy about it. The last time dreams of murder started haunting her, she was very young, and they ended up leading her to the person who killed her parents. That was almost two decades ago, when she and her aunt lived in rural West Virginia. Partially to avoid the press and start anew, they relocated to Cleveland, where Megan is now a student teacher getting close to graduating from college, and her aunt runs a small but solvent flower shop. All is going well...until the dreams begin again. Despite her reluctance, Megan goes to the police, and finds herself up against David Stark, the primary on the case. Stark doesn't believe in psychics. This isn't backwater West Virginia. The logical explanation: Megan is a suspect. The monkeywrench: man, is Stark hot for her or what?
That Sweet Dreams is actually a pretty solidly-plotted and -written mystery makes its shortcomings all the more disappointing. The book suffers from two major deficiencies. First off, if you're familiar with Roger Ebert's amusing catalog of movie clichés, you'll know that one of the great classics is that the killer is always the person who the screenwriter (or author, in this case) goes out of his or her way to make seem harmless. Dead on. I knew who the killer was two paragraphs after he entered the story, and I wasn't wrong. (It did take me until almost the end of the book to figure out how he was connected, though, and that's something.) Second is the romance plot. I can't really call it a subplot because when it comes right down to it, Sweet Dreams is a romantic-suspense novel a la Mira Books, though much better than anything Mira that I've read. Edwards never quite seems comfortable with the romance storyline, especially the pacing of it. She rushes hard and heavy into establishing that we're going to get a romance angle, but then needs to back off. How to do that gracefully? (Simple answer: you can't, really.) This is the first, but far from the only, time the romance angle provides a stumbling block in this novel. A bit of consulting with a romance novelist and a rewrite or two on those sections would have really helped.
All the bad stuff said, the good stuff balances it out. When she's not addressing the romance angle, Edwards is quite good at pacing. Her characters never seem cliché, even when they're stock (the one exception is the police captain, but he's not around enough to really mar things). She throws in the string-of-twist-endings gig, which is kinda hard to pull off effectively, and I think she's got a handle on how to do it. While the main identity of the killer is predictable, the why of it is interesting; Edwards leads you to think you've got it all figured out when you've got the who so she can blindside you with the why, and that's nicely-done.
Overall, could've used a rewrite or two before heading off to press, but a solid mystery that will keep you entertained if you're a fan of the romantic suspense genre. ** ½
I picked this up at a local Half Price Books a couple of months ago from the horror section (where it didn't belong; this is a police procedural/mystery). As always, I was well behind on my reading, and didn't get round to it until just now. I had entirely missed that the book is inscribed to Brian and Joe, a pair of local radio personalities who've been around for dog's years. (One of them, for those of you who value trivia, is related to Adrian Cronauer, the DJ whose life was the very loose basis for the film Good Morning, Vietnam.) Which has nothing at all to do with D. L. Edwards' book, but it makes for an amusing cocktail-party story. So grab your martini and let's talk Sweet Dreams. The first thing to note about it is the publisher, iUniverse. I can already hear the groans from the peanut gallery. “Another vanity-published monstrosity! Save us!” And I admit, if you haven't been exposed to as much vanity-pubbed material as I have and you pick up a random iU book, you probably have some basis for that statement. But as with all things, if you wade through enough swine you're going to find a few pearls. From a technical standpoint, Sweet Dreams is surprisingly well put-together, which is kind of amazing; either Edwards hired a professional editor or she's good enough to be one herself.
Plot: Megan Montgomery is a psychic, and she's not at all happy about it. The last time dreams of murder started haunting her, she was very young, and they ended up leading her to the person who killed her parents. That was almost two decades ago, when she and her aunt lived in rural West Virginia. Partially to avoid the press and start anew, they relocated to Cleveland, where Megan is now a student teacher getting close to graduating from college, and her aunt runs a small but solvent flower shop. All is going well...until the dreams begin again. Despite her reluctance, Megan goes to the police, and finds herself up against David Stark, the primary on the case. Stark doesn't believe in psychics. This isn't backwater West Virginia. The logical explanation: Megan is a suspect. The monkeywrench: man, is Stark hot for her or what?
That Sweet Dreams is actually a pretty solidly-plotted and -written mystery makes its shortcomings all the more disappointing. The book suffers from two major deficiencies. First off, if you're familiar with Roger Ebert's amusing catalog of movie clichés, you'll know that one of the great classics is that the killer is always the person who the screenwriter (or author, in this case) goes out of his or her way to make seem harmless. Dead on. I knew who the killer was two paragraphs after he entered the story, and I wasn't wrong. (It did take me until almost the end of the book to figure out how he was connected, though, and that's something.) Second is the romance plot. I can't really call it a subplot because when it comes right down to it, Sweet Dreams is a romantic-suspense novel a la Mira Books, though much better than anything Mira that I've read. Edwards never quite seems comfortable with the romance storyline, especially the pacing of it. She rushes hard and heavy into establishing that we're going to get a romance angle, but then needs to back off. How to do that gracefully? (Simple answer: you can't, really.) This is the first, but far from the only, time the romance angle provides a stumbling block in this novel. A bit of consulting with a romance novelist and a rewrite or two on those sections would have really helped.
All the bad stuff said, the good stuff balances it out. When she's not addressing the romance angle, Edwards is quite good at pacing. Her characters never seem cliché, even when they're stock (the one exception is the police captain, but he's not around enough to really mar things). She throws in the string-of-twist-endings gig, which is kinda hard to pull off effectively, and I think she's got a handle on how to do it. While the main identity of the killer is predictable, the why of it is interesting; Edwards leads you to think you've got it all figured out when you've got the who so she can blindside you with the why, and that's nicely-done.
Overall, could've used a rewrite or two before heading off to press, but a solid mystery that will keep you entertained if you're a fan of the romantic suspense genre. ** ½
September 15, 2010
I enjoyed the idea of this book. It was a bit choppy and did not flow in some places, but it was not enough to keep me from reading the book. It definitely would make a good Lifetime thriller type movie.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews