Through Dreams So Dark

Rai Ascendant #1

by Angela Boord

Sergei’s mother sacrificed herself to get her family across the Iron Curtain. Now it’s Sergei’s turn to save her…even if he has to cross realities to do it.

Sergei is determined to put his broken family back together, no matter the danger.

Not-rats and bugs hiding in his walls, listening to his conversations? He can live with that. The shadowy government organization trying to dig encoded information out of his nightmares? He’ll play along to learn what they know about his mother.

If he has to destroy his college career, his love life, and the best friendship he’s ever had—with his roommate Cam—he’ll do that, too, if that’s what it takes. He’s the only one who believes his mother is still alive.

Nobody else needs to get hurt if he doesn’t tell them what he’s doing.

But however hard Sergei tries to keep his double life a secret, Cam still shows up to save him whenever he’s in trouble, like Cam has some kind of magical sixth sense—a sense that keeps them bonded together no matter what. And when Sergei finally breaks through his dreams into a world where monsters lurk and reality changes on a whim…where having magic carries a death sentence…the stakes of this game could be far higher than Sergei wants to pay. Now it’s not just his life on the line—he’s dragged people he cares about into danger with him.

He thought he could risk himself alone. But will his single-minded mission to find his mother be worth the price everyone he loves has to pay?

Stranger Things meets epic fantasy in this portal fantasy set in a world of ever-shifting conspiracy and quantum magic, where reality itself can’t be trusted, and family isn’t just about who you’re related to.

Genres: Fantasy

892 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 27, 2022

About the author

Angela Boord is a hopeless romantic, a nerdy introvert, and the author of SPFBO5 Finalist FORTUNE’S FOOL. She can usually be found with her nose in a book when she’s not writing her own dark fantasy epics of hope, redemption, and relationships in all their messy glory. Angela and her husband live in northern Mississippi in a house full of children, books, and innumerable quantities of Legos.

Sign up for my newsletter at https://angelaboord.com and get "Roses in Winter", a free Eterean Empire story!

Find me everywhere! https://linktr.ee/angelaboord

Reviews

[John Mauro · Rating 3 out of 5]

My complete review of Through Dreams So Dark is published at Grimdark Magazine.

Through Dreams So Dark is a dark portal fantasy by Angela Boord that hearkens back to some of the great classics of Russian literature in both its story and its epic scope.

Through Dreams So Dark begins in our own world in the 1980s as we are introduced to the lead protagonist, Sergei Preobrazhensky, a young man from a Russian émigré family now living in the American Midwest. Sergei’s mother is missing and presumed dead after helping her family flee across the Iron Curtain.

Plagued by bizarre hyper-realistic dreams, Sergei is determined to understand his family’s past and find closure with respect to his missing mother. Sergei is helped by his best friend and college roommate, Cameron, and an excellent cast of supporting characters as they discover a portal called the Lake which leads to a parallel fantasy world.

On the other side of the portal, Sergei and friends discover a dark fantasy world with warring tribes and contentious magic. Connections between the parallel worlds develop slowly over the course of the book, with plenty of unexpected twists along the way.

Angela Boord’s prose is compulsively readable, blending a 1980s Stranger Things vibe with a Bulgakovian sense of humor. The beginning of the book is perfectly executed, including some incisive humor that made me laugh out loud:

“At first, I cursed at him in Russian, because I’m polite like that. After I got to know him, I still cursed in Russian, but I used his name so he’d know I was cursing him.”

However, the rest of the book carries on for Tolstoyan lengths, which slowly sapped away my enjoyment of the story. At nearly 900 pages, Through Dreams So Dark would benefit from some significant cuts to tighten up its plot and pacing.

My favorite part of Through Dreams So Dark are the subtle nods to classic Russian literature. For example, Sergei’s family name, Preobrazhensky, is taken from famed Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov’s Soviet-era novella, Heart of a Dog, a biting takedown of the Communist party’s embrace of eugenics.

Angela Boord echoes a similar theme in Through Dreams So Dark, which features a potential Soviet conspiracy involving eugenics-tinged laboratory experiments. She pairs this with the enduring Russian émigré experience, a staple in Vladimir Nabokov’s canon of literature.

Through Dreams So Dark is recommended for fans of classic Russian literature and for anyone who enjoys a well-written portal fantasy.

[Lukasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is HUGE! At 1323 pages, it's probably the longest book I've ever read. Was it worth it? Or have I finished it through stubbornness alone?

I'm still trying to find a simple answer. Through Dreams So Dark tells a complex, immersive story. It contains enough material for two-three great books. However, as a single HUGE tome, it's sometimes daunting and, to be brutally honest, tiring.

Don't get me wrong. It's a good book that requires a lot of attention and slow reading. Angela Boord's writing style is rich and elegant. She keeps the plot twisty, the worldbuilding intricate, and the characters complex and believable. But she also takes her time ( a LOT of time ) to build relationships, and I wonder if a tighter story wouldn't have greater appeal. Even splitting it into two volumes would give readers a breather (especially since there are natural pauses - the book is divided into parts). But I digress: Instead of focusing on its length, I should focus on its content. Besides, I've heard that some readers are into elephant-sized shelf-destroyers :P

Through Dreams So dark is a multiverse portal fantasy with romance (and bromance), magic, and great characters. It's emotional; even when it gets dark and gritty, it's never hopeless. In Through Dreams So Dark, people can access a portal (called The Lake of The World) that connects different realities in their dreams.

The worlds on opposite sides of the Lake differ a lot. On "our" side of the Lake, we begin in a college town in Illinois in 1988; on the other side hides a very different world with a post-apocalyptic feel. It used to be ruled by gods who were overthrown by their subjects. It resulted in two groups of people fighting for centuries (the pro-magic Miroko and the Tarani, who execute magic users so their gods can't choose new avatars). The book opens with the Tarani claiming gods are going to return to bring a new Deiocracy.

In our world, Sergei deals with a broken family and shadowy government organization trying to dig encoded information out of his nightmares. He agrees to it to learn what they know about his mother, who sacrificed herself to get her family across the Iron Curtain. Sergei has a friend, Cam, but he wants to keep him unaware of everything. With no results. It seems Cam has a sixth sense that allows him to show up to save Sergei whenever he's in trouble.

Cam has a sister, and Sergei used to have a girlfriend, but... But I think I'll stop here. I would have to write an essay to describe what happens in Through Dreams So Dark. With footnotes and an appendix. As expected, Sergey crosses the portal into a world that's different from ours. And that's where the good stuff starts. I want to emphasize here that the scene where the characters cross realities is insanely good. Like, absolutely brilliant and moving, with powerful imagery.

Angela Boord writes gorgeous prose that's always a pleasure to read. Her characterization skills continue to impress me. Her ability to keep things tight... Well. It's not perfect. The story combines many things, and although I read for the characters, in this case, I felt that their stories and backstories and romance arcs slowed the pace and muddled the main plot lines. That's subjective and I'm sure many readers will love parts that I found tiring.

I have a hard time rating and reviewing Through Dreams So Dark - it's full of brilliant moments and intelligent intrigue. At the same time, it's too slow at times, and I had to force myself to keep reading. In the end, I'm glad I finished reading it. It's an immersive and memorable mix of urban, portal, and epic fantasy with great characters. But I still feel like it would work better as two or three smaller books.

[Rowena Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will be honest this is one of those occasions where it was the cover that did it. I’d seen some talk about this one, but it was seeing the cover that immediately elevated this book to a must read – it’s just so striking. The premise was fascinating too, although I would be the first to admit that portal fantasy is a subgenre that I’ve only dipped my toes in so far, but I can say that this one was nothing like what I had semi-expected in the best possible way.

Now it has to be said off the bat, that Through Dreams so Dark is a massive book. A true chonk of chonks, and alongside that size, it is very much a slow burn book. It demands your focus, your ability to pay attention to all the different threads, and the subtle hints that link one thread with another…and ten others; and it takes the time to build up those threads, the layers upon layers of characterisation. On the outside it might seem like an intimidating read, but oh my goodness, is it worth it! I read Through Dreams so Dark while travelling down to Bristolcon, and it pulled me completely out of where I was sat on the bus and firmly into the world(s) that Boord was bringing to life, and I couldn’t put it down. I ate up those details, that slow but steady ramping up of everything, the unfolding connections that might have seemed confusing at the start but began to make sense as the characters moved forward, learned new things, made new connections, and it stuck in my mind afterwards and triggered a very quick reread because I wanted more time in this world and with these characters.

In a certain kingdom, in a certain land, there lived a boy who dreamed of snow and guns.

**

In another kingdom, in another land, a woman chose to begin her story by getting properly drunk.

I absolutely have to start properly with a look at the worldbuilding, because as with everything about this book, it is multi-layered and compelling, and Boord does such a fantastic job of making both worlds – as well as the space in between – beautifully, vividly realised. Also, since it is me, there has to be a bonus point for the map at the beginning of the book, and also a shoutout for the inclusion of not just a glossary (although I will say that context informed me for all the words while I was reading, but it was a great inclusion all the same), but also a pronunciation guide for names.

If we start on this side of the ‘Lake’ we have an almost typical college town in the US, in the shadow of the USSR and the cold war and all that entails. This gives us a grounding, an understanding – and Boord takes that and twists it on end, because while we may have the elements of a spy thriller, with government organisations involved, and a family that had fled trying to remain hidden – it is apparent from the beginning that there is far more going on.

More going on.

Really that should be the tag line for this book, because if you were to slice into any part of this book, you would find more than you see on the surface. It doesn’t take long for us to get a peek beneath that surface, enough to tell us that not everything is as it seems, enough to hint at things to come, but not enough to tear down that curtain straight away.

“You won’t remember much of what we do, Seryozha, but you’ll remember the important parts. You’ll remember enough.”

The use of a ‘familiar’ or rather more familiar setting on this side of the Lake was an interesting choice and serves multiple purposes. On the one hand, that familiarity and understanding of how things should work, mean that the things that are strange and out of place stand out a little more, like that thing you see in the corner of your eye and turn around just to find nothing there. It also allows the focus to be on the characters in this place, because the world is one we recognise. And yet at the same time Boord breathes life and character into this world, from looking at it through the eyes of immigrants, to moments and memories with the characters, to seeing how life has shaped the characters – there are so many important character and plot moments that happen in this setting, and while the worldbuilding is simpler here, it shapes them all the same.

And the scene with the blue sky and the trees and the prairie grass sucked them under, him and Cam and Maddie, wrapping around them, filling up his ears and eyes and mouth, until it was just like water and it was suffocating him, drowning him, for the second time that day.

The scene where these realities are breached, and we finally get into the real meat of the story is one of the most visual and visceral scenes in the entire book. It’s the kind of scene that you don’t need to close your eyes to imagine and has shivers down your back.

I also love that the ‘portal’ such as it is, is a lake. How many of us have looked into a pond or even just a puddle, and at the reflection of the world and looked for differences? Or imagined jumping into a really deep one as a kid and wondering if you would jump through to another world? Boord has taken that link, that reflection and made it into something special. And it’s not just a portal or a mirror, it’s a pathway, a memory, a time capsule that captures the past, present and future of all places, and looks at possibilities. And the fact that it is something natural, something that could be found in any possible world just makes it seem all the more powerful – and makes for truly beautiful imagery.

The world on the other side is where Boord’s worldbuilding really shines, and here we see the science-fantasy of the experiments Sergei endures, the attempts to breach these realities gives away to epic fantasy. We have a world with multiple cultures, a rich and complicated history, and magic in various forms (and limitations, and societal restrictions). It would be easy enough to make this reality magical in comparison to the familiarity and outward normality of the other side of the lake, and yet the author has not rested on her laurels – and as powerful as the events and development on the other side was, it was the chapters firstly with Ináwé and later where the main focus shifted to this world that were my favourite.

‘You still needed to be aware enough for the spirits to carve your memories out of you and put them on your body. If you got too drunk, you were as likely to wake up entirely covered in memories as you were to have none of them made flesh.’

The magic, and especially the use of and relationships with spirits were absolutely my favourite part of this world. I also liked that it was so built into the world that it was part of everything from history to relations between the different people, to the wall, even down through the economy (legal and illegal), it was so integral to the world that you couldn’t imagine it or the story without that aspect. It also wasn’t a solution or a gimmick, in fact for all the power it gifted, it seemed to cost or threaten to cost more than it gave, which is one of my favourite ways for magic to be portrayed. It was also an interesting reflection on power, for example, healers were incredibly powerful in their own way, especially through what we saw with Jisel – and yet it was power that was a tool to others, healers were used when useful, but could be killed on the whim of those who had no magical power. It always makes me wonder how societies are built like that, and here we have it all, because Boord delves into the history with the betrayal of the wolf, the possibilities of things to come shown through the lake, to the machinations of those seeking more power.

Everything is more than it seems.

There’s also just the sheer variety of how ‘magic’ in its various forms can be used, from the forging of weapons, to healing, to rainmaking – each filling a different aspect of the world, moving pieces within moving pieces, and again this is where the slower build of this book pays off. Because Boord takes the time to explore these elements, to build them up, to show how society and therefore the characters interact with it, how paths are changed because of it – such as when Ináwé and Niko meet the sniffers. Yet, at the same time, it feels like we are just scraping the surface, and that as much as we through the characters have learned more about the world(s) and what is happening and has happened, and might happen, we are still only scratching the surface and more lies beneath the lake – which just makes me more excited for the rest of the series.

He swallowed, bobbed a nod. Couldn’t explain the way a bowl full of dumplings had ambushed him. He was just so fucking tired, and everything hurt.

Another aspect, that feels as though it is the glue that holds so much together – from the worldbuilding, to the characters, to the plot itself – is memories.

What is a memory? Is it something that is an integral part of you? Something that could be slivered away, like a knife peeling a potato, to leave something raw but with more potential underneath. Are you still yourself, if your memories are lost or changed, or somehow false?

Memories were such a prevalent theme in this book, and in so many different ways. There were historical and cultural memories, those built into tales and known history that were shared from person to person or entrenched in the laws and interactions of people in the present – like the Tarani and magic users. There were personal memories, both recent and far reaching, the moments that had shaped the present story – for instance I loved how memories were used to show how Niko and Ináwé, had come to the point they had in the present, and Boord uses it skilfully as a tool for further character development; but also the memories of events that had shaped the characters into the people they were now, from Sergei trying to make sense of what he remembered from childhood, to Ináwé, having memories of happier more innocent times when she was a child.

But memories like so much of this book are both more than that and less. They are malleable, fallible, a possibility. Yet, they also have the power to define – such as through the use of memory parlours where memories are tattooed on the skin by the spirits. They are also connections in and of themselves, we see that with Ináwé and Niko as their relationship shifts and changes, and through Cam and Sergei; and can threaten those relationships in turn when shifted or twisted or forgotten, such as with Sergei and Maddie, or even the memories he had of his mother.

In a way, I wish Cam had finished telling the story because then I would have known which set of memories was the right one. I need some kind of guide, and Cam’s the only one I can count on.

Which leads me to the heart of this book, and that is the characters. For all the mysteries and magic, the epic scale of the world, the portal, the twisting of realities and memories, it is the characters that bind everything together, and Boord’s skill with characterisation is second to none. This is why the slow burn of the book is needed, and why it is so effective, because that time is given to the characters both as individuals, but also to the friendships, the family bonds, and relationships that exist, that break, and grow throughout the book.

Sergei is our main character, his search for the truth of what happened to his mother drives so much of the book and pulls so many of the characters into his orbit. I will admit that he was also the character that took me the longest to warm too, not because of his character, but because how fragmented his sense of self and the world was. Yet, from the beginning I also found him one of the most compelling characters to read, and for the same reason that it took so long to connect, because I wanted to find the answers he was seeking, and answer the questions he had about what was happening to him and around him. I also liked that he was a messy, real human being, that we got to see the impact of the past and the present shaping who he was, that he was trying not just to find his answers or himself but trying to be better – for himself and for those around him. It’s impossible not to connect with a drive like that, and we spent so much time with him, that it felt like we were taking each step and facing each new discovery and challenge right there with him.

He’s just a friend, people said. Well, what the hell did friendship mean, if it wasn’t important enough to grieve when it failed?

Cam was an interesting character, and one of my favourites – and the friendship between him and Sergei is one of the strongest relationships in the entire book. Not because it is smooth or simple, in fact it’s anything but, but it was just so good to see a friendship explored so deeply as it traversed highs and lows, and challenges that could and did break things, only to be patched together. They were both incredibly complicated, messy characters, and neither one was able to fill the other’s gaps completely, they weren’t a cure for one another, but they were an anchor, a support, that was often more permanent and real than familial bonds. Cam’s path is all the more interesting, because he wasn’t searching for answers and he didn’t have the same sense of things as Sergei did, but he became involved and entangled as a friend and became deeper and deeper involved because he couldn’t and wouldn’t walk away despite everything he endured. Maddie was similar in many ways, but also different, her connection with Sergei was different and her relationship with Cam rode the gauntlet of dealing with an over protective sibling, to egging him on, to needing him (again the depths of these relationships). But, I like that she very much came into her own – not restricted to being a love interest or a younger sister – and that her relationship with both of them shifted and changed to reflect that, and the experiences they were having.

A man with dusky skin and blackberry eyes and blackberry hair, the color of crow feathers, leaned over her.

I have to admit though my favourite character wasn’t one of our main POV characters, but rather Yirek – a crow spirit. There was just something so intriguing about his role in so many of the characters stories, but also I adored how Boord captured his otherworldliness. He wasn’t human and that showed in how he spoke and saw the world and it’s possibilities, and yet at the same time she captured perfectly how human interactions and bonds had shaped him. I always got very excited when he appeared on the page!

I also really enjoyed Ináwé, Niko and Jisel as characters (and oh my heart at the fate of one of them, I knew…but I wasn’t ready). I think in part hey stood out the most, because they were showing us different aspects of the world, they were our eyes, our voices and our connection to the world. Ináwé was definitely one of my favourites from the beginning, her character voice was so strong, and what I loved was that she grew so much throughout the story in ways that I hadn’t expected from when we first met her, and she straddled that boundary of strength without being the ‘strong woman’, and I think of all the character threads, hers was probably the one that I was most individually invested in. Niko was nothing like I had expected from his first meeting, and he was an interesting point of stability in a cast of messy characters – not to say he wasn’t complex or messy in his own way, or in the path his story took, but there is something about a character who is so focused and defined by his honour and promises, especially in a world of so much shifting and changing. Jisel on the other hand, was a character I thought I was going to dislike when we first met him, even as I sympathised with the cost of his abilities and the situation, he found himself in and yet he grew on me so much as the story progressed.

Boord has created some truly wonderful characters in this book, and I have only touched on a few of them, and there are so many more that add so much to the story, and the threads of the characters. I’m also in awe of her ability to bring to life the connections and relationships throughout this book, not one of them felt inorganic or unimportant, and yes, this story is incredibly heavy on the character development and the exploration of these bonds – but I think that is why it works so well. These are characters we connect with, that we are invested with, and that raises the stakes in and of itself – and it is the characters that I am still mulling over after reading this book for a second time.

As mentioned before this is a slow burn, and Boord does take the time to delve into the characters – their pasts, their emotions and relationships, and really allow us to get to know them. This does mean that Through Dreams so Dark is for the most part a slower paced book; in my opinion it is both worth it and necessary to what this book is and does, because we need that depth, those connections to fully appreciate the threads that are coming together. And it must be stressed, there is plenty of action and tension, and there was never a point where it felt too slow or too convoluted, and I was never waiting for the next spike of action. Everything in this book is beautifully balanced and brought together in away that always spurred the plot and the characters forward, nothing is wasted, and the devil is in the details with this book. On top of that Boord’s prose is just wonderful to read, and she has a fantastic ability to paint imagery so vividly that you were utterly brought into the world she was weaving around us.

Through Dreams so Dark is a commitment. It demands – and deserves – focus when reading it, but Boord has made that so easy to give with captivating worldbuilding, compelling characters and a way of weaving together a multi-thread story in a way that feels like you are on a quest alongside the characters to make sense of everything. This is a story that pushes boundaries, that makes you consider what makes a person and more than that, what makes the connections that each person forms in the world, and what people can and will do for others when the situation calls for it. This book is epic in every sense of the world, and was one of the most complex, satisfying reads that filled both heart and mind; and I am so excited to see where Boord takes us in the rest of the Rai Ascendant series. If you want an experience, and to delve into the space between reality…and not reality, and you love big stories, with an even bigger heart then you should absolutely be checking out Through Dreams so Dark.

[Angela Boord]

2025... The revision into 2 books is getting closer! The new book 1 will be released in 2026 and I've read through this book backwards and forwards multiple times this year. I'm *very* excited about the changes I've made to it!

12/8/24… I’m revising Dreams in order to break it into two books and I just reached the end again… I’m really excited about re-releasing this story and now that I’ve reached the end- I’ve remembered why I wanted to write this story in the first place and what I’ve always loved about these characters. Looking forward to bringing it out in 2 book format!

10/27/22... It's finally here!! Through Dreams So Dark is now available in e-book and free on Kindle Unlimited! And I finally get to count it as one of the books I've read this year!

This was a big emotional book to write, and it's definitely epic in scope... It's a dark book, but it's also a book about love and family and friendship, so there's a good dose of humor and banter and romance and hopefully some light shining in the darkness. There's also a lot of action, and a monster battle, and a bunch of creepy nightmare scenes, and *lots* of magic.

Basically, I tried to write the kind of book I would like to read :-)

[Jamedi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full text review: https://jamreads.com/reviews/through-...

Through Dreams So Dark is the first novel in the Rai Ascendant series, a new portal fantasy proposal by Angela Boord, one of my favourite authors. An epic story with a big emotional component, with a cast of characters that you learn to love during the novel, especially with how well relationships are written.

We are going to be following the story of Sergei, who was only four when his family and he escaped from the Soviet Union; being his mother shot, without knowing if she survived or not.
They fleed to Illinois, assuming Sergei's mother is dead. Sergei doesn't accept this, as he believes she might still be alive, due to certain details that he observes; and due to the trauma he suffers, he's sent to a therapist where he's prescribed drugs that affect his memory and that makes him have some hallucinations with "non-rats" and "non-bugs".

Cameron, his best friend, is worried about the effects of this treatment, something that makes him discover that the people in the "clinic" are using Sergei as a way to obtain information about the Lake, a sort of portal that allows you to travel to another world. With the company of his sister, Maddie, they enter the clinic, and get together transported into the other world through the Lake.
That's how they land into the Rai Deocracy, an alternative world where the Miroko are in a war against the Tarani; all due to their opposite visions on the use of magic (Tarani prosecutes all the magic users). Here, they will experience a journey motivated by the Lake, which has its own agenda, and where they will also try to know more about Sergei's mother's destiny.

This book is a good example of Boord's main strength: writing credible relationships and characters that you can relate to. Most of the time, we are going to be following Sergei, Cameron, or Maddie.
Sergei is a character that is difficult to not appreciate. A working person who is trying to get a title while still accepting those "treatments" in order to gather info about what could have happened to his mother. A dreamer, and somebody that will sacrifice himself for the rest.
Cameron is his best friend, and it's kinda different, but still tries to take care of Sergei. If you could see a friendship definition, Cameron and Sergei's is the perfect one. As the brother of Maddie, he's overprotective of her.
Between Maddie and Sergei, a romantic relationship appears, in a really natural way; it doesn't feel forced at any point, and how both have their own struggles. Sergei is full of doubts, in part created due to his memory problems; and Maddie is his best friend's sister, another factor that makes the relationship difficult.

The Rai Deocracy is a prime example of how you can do excellent work of worldbuilding without needing big info dumps, as we are introduced to many aspects through the eyes of our characters. As there are many characters that belong to the Miroko or Tarani tribe, many of those small details get foreshadowed.
It also deserves a mention of how well-built the part of the novel that happens to be in our world is, as Boord has taken extreme care of the details (even small ones as the jargon are really refined), making it as close as it would be to 1988's Illinois.

This novel is a really chonk book, and it can be a little bit intimidating with its 893 pages; and honestly, it's a real slow-burn story: there is so much build-up that later gets used to deliver a huge payoff. While I understand that might not be for all people, I personally loved it.

Through Dreams So Dark is an amazing novel, a perfect combination between epicness and emotional aspects of fantasy. I can't wait to continue Sergei's story in the second book, because there are so many questions that I need to answer!

[S. Bavey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was sent a review copy by the author - thank you! My review is honest and my opinions are my own.

Through Dreams So Dark is a compelling portal fantasy. The portal is a Lake which certain people from the world we know can access via lucid dreams enhanced by using strong drugs. Crossing through the Lake of the World takes them to an alternate world in which the magic-using Miroko are at war with the tribal tattoo-decorated Tarani, who are terrified of magic and will drown anyone they discover able to wield it. The Lake is a sentient entity, driving main character Sergei’s dreams in directions that serve its own agenda.

We meet Sergei or Seryoshka when he is only four years old and his family is fleeing the Soviet Union. Sergei and two older siblings, Kolya and Anya, escape the USSR stuffed inside luggage trunks with their father. Their mother is shot in the woods but they never see if she survived or not. The psychological trauma they suffer as a result of these events has waves which ripple throughout each of their lives:

“Old hurts don’t stop hurting just because they’re old.”

They defect to Illinois thinking their mother is dead, but his whole life Sergei has held on to the belief that she is still alive and is determined to find her. His father has never taken off his wedding ring and Sergei takes this as confirmation that she is still alive. He is bullied at school for being different and is sent to a therapist where he is prescribed strong drugs which affect his personality and leave him with large gaps in his memory. The drugs enable him to visit the lake in the woods where he experiences extremely realistic dreams of his mother. He sees things that he calls “not-rats” and “not-bugs” and his world becomes more surreal and dreamlike as a result of the drugs. His best friend and roommate, Cameron, is worried about him and the “treatment” he receives at the clinic and has a sixth sense which allows him to show up right on time whenever Sergei needs him. Sergei is being drugged and manipulated by shady individuals at the clinic who are using him to discover information about the Lake. It never really becomes clear why he has complied with this treatment for so long.

“there are a lot of chess masters out there just moving pawns on a board. I was never as good at chess as my father and my sister, but I knew for damn sure I didn’t want to be a pawn.”

Boord has created some really believable characters here and they were my favourites in the book, along with Cam’s younger sister Maddie, who Sergei finds himself falling in love with.

“Two normal, ordinary Americans, caught up in this strange game of otherworldly warfare.”

The storyline on the other side of the Lake was interesting and much more like a traditional fantasy, but a little too complicated for my liking. It took quite a while for me to figure out how everything fit together. The cast of characters on the fantasy side of the Lake is enormous and their history is complicated. Added to this is the fact that certain characters have two or more names they are known by and the memory workout for the reader begins! The world is richly described with a complex history encompassing warring tribes, gods disappearing and possibly ascending to power once again, future seers, spirit guides who can only be seen by certain lineages and magic wielders who can heal and bring back people from the brink of death.

The world building is detailed and interesting - a wall separates the Miroko from the Tarani and occasionally moves and traps people crushing their limbs or killing them. Anything built by the ancient, magical Rai has a tendency to change location and new rooms sometimes appear without warning. This adds to a dreamlike quality which is already very present throughout the book, with the characters often being drugged or drinking too much.

“It wasn’t like his dreams, and it wasn’t like being awake. It was like being both of something at the same time”

“He felt like he was going to puke—not exactly in disgust, more like motion sickness. The world felt like it had turned into a bad carnival ride.”

The story burns slowly and switches between each of the groups of people over a number of chapters which meant my brain struggled to remember how the people in the different groups related to one another and I often forgot details i had learned about them between their separate chapters. Having said that it was a very compelling, imaginative and original story and I really enjoyed the burgeoning romance between Sergei and Maddie. I think writing romance is one of Boord’s strengths and I love how realistically these teenagers are written, all their insecurities brought to the surface and the strength of Cam and Sergei’s friendship is wonderful. Then when Sergei finds himself falling for Cam’s sister Maddie, someone who is surely out of bounds, his guilt-ridden angst is palpable. Maddie and Sergei are very cute together, as they try to get to know one another better without giving away their feelings.
Jisel the Healer was another favourite character of mine. Emotionally exhausted from being able to read minds and having to absorb the feelings of those around him, he is a party to much more information than everyone else and it will be interesting to see what path he takes in the future.

There are so many wonderful elements to this enormous chonk of a book (over 1300 pages) and I can only begin to touch on some of them. The ending leaves many questions unanswered and I will definitely be looking out for the sequel and reading more of Boord’s work in the meantime as I really loved her writing style.

[Emma Cathryne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Angela Boord has done it again! Through Dreams So Dark is a massive, sprawling portal fantasy epic of unimaginable scale. It’s not often I feel like epic fantasy and portal fantasy meld well together, but Boord does an excellent job of blending the fantastical and the mundane, introducing a brand new world while unearthing thrilling mysteries in a familiar one. The story fallows a young Russian immigrant named Sergei who, though a series of events, falls with his best friend and best friend’s sister through a mysterious otherworld called The Lake into a land populated by magic and gods. The story jumps back and forth between the hazy mysteries of Sergei and his friends’ past in our world, and several characters journeys in the parallel world. The story is magnificently intricate, but perhaps to the detriment of pacing. The sections with Sergei and his friends tended to be very slow (particularly the 1/3 of the book they spend wandering around the plains with a clan with whom they cannot communicate), but the sections narrated by POV characters in the parallel world progressed naturally and generally were more rewarding in terms of information granted. This book rewards patience, but I do think a lot of the explanations left to the end would have been better served introduced earlier. Usually having characters see a new world with fresh eyes gives a great chance to make the reader acclimate along with the characters, and while the language barrier was interesting and realistic, it made me feel as confused as the characters at times. I feel like a lot of the Sergei, Cam, and Maddie sections could have been edited down to maintain the compelling mysteries of the connection between Cam, Sergei, and Maddie and Sergei’s missing mother, while speeding up the narrative.

The characters were overall excellent: Cam, Inawe, Kaija, and Jisel were my standout favorites although I was disappointed Inawe sort of disappeared from the narrative after a point. Sergei and Maddie I enjoyed, particularly the turmoil between Sergei’s quest for his mother, struggles with the clinic, and relationship with his family, but I wasn’t convinced by Sergei and Maddie’s romance (honestly felt like Sergei had more chemistry with Cam but maybe that’s just me!) I wish Cam’s bisexuality was explored more beyond being something he was ashamed of and confused by, but maybe that’s something future books will tackle. In general it was a slightly off-putting to see most of the queer relationships/encounters in the book be ones that were toxic, ended in betrayal, or were just about sex. I was highly intrigued by Uqua but wish she had been able to communicate with Cam and Sergei earlier in the story beyond just being cast as the foreign seductress. I loved seeing the flashes of her ulterior motives, and look forward to learning more about her in future books.

Overall, this ambitious first novel feels a bit confusing and discursive at times, but makes up for it with wonderful characters and an incredibly well-devised fantasy world rich with lore. I adored the magic system and the mystery of the missing gods, and the little details like the evranni, spirit pacts, and the black market Rai artifacts were brilliant. So excited to see that explored more. The novel left a lot of questions unanswered, but has me hugely excited to see where Boord takes the story next .

[C.M. Caplan · Rating 5 out of 5]

THROUGH DREAMS SO DARK is one of the best books you will ever read. Full stop. Do yourself a favor and check it out immediately, because you need this in your life.

At 1300 pages, I know some people might, wrongheadedly, be intimidated by the length. But there is NOTHING here that falls short of absolutely brilliant, and everything in this book functions to push forwards through one of the most breathtaking worlds, and absolutely stunning character work I've ever read. And the book clips along at a fantastic pace. You're going to get to the end and want more, even after all those pages. That's just how good it is. So don't be intimidated.

The relationships are at the core of this book, and I've never seen an author who is better at character work and and building relationships than Angela Boord. Even Robin Hobb has got nothing on this masterpiece. It's insane.

It is the story of Sergei Preobrazhensky, a Russian immigrant whose mother was killed when he was a child, when he and his family fled the country during the Cold War. The year is 1988, and tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union fuel this portal fantasy, as the espionage between the two countries fuels the backdrop that pushes Sergei and his friends through something called The Lake into a world whose own political tensions serve as a dark mirror to our own.

Throughout the novel, there is a central theme of unconditional love, and how far people are willing to go for each other, and the strength of the relationships built in this book is really a testament to the success of that theme. I've never really seen before a character's relationships to other people have a sense of atmosphere in and of itself, but somehow, stunningly, Boord has managed this. It's insanely good, because despite the fact that every character in this book is the hottest, messiest bitch who's ever lived, their relationships have survived some of the most fucked up stuff imaginable. And the fact that people are still showing up even after the most monumental fuckups can make even the kindness of unconditional love at times inspiring, and absolutely heartbreaking. It's such a rollercoaster of a novel, and it was an absolute treasure to read.

I'm not even sure if I'm making sense at this point. It's just so insanely good I don't even know if I have the right language to fully encapsulate it, in all honesty. You owe it to yourself to check this out. Please thank me later, because you won't regret it.

[A Reading · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is spectacular.
Full review to come, but I will say, for now, this book strikes a perfect balance between character, plot and world-building. It's enthralling and maddening in all the best ways.
A very clever, complex story.