Customer Reviews

The Dream Hunter

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It seems to me that reviewers are missing the central source of conflict in this clever romance with literary aspirations. In a nutshell, the hero and heroine are polar opposites. Kinsale offers plenty of symbols and metaphors to convey this:

1. The hero's name is "Winter" - he is cold, emotionally withdrawn from other humans - and (paradoxically) drawn to landscapes of hot, arid emptiness. Zenia, meanwhile, has lived her entire life under the scorching desert sun. She longs for the cool, lush gardens of England, and paradoxically, the warmth of human contact.

2. More conflict stems from the enormous material differences in the life experiences of the two principles: Winter has always possessed social power and wealth; ergo, they mean nothing to him; Zenia has always lived a powerless and materially deprived existence. She longs for financial security, basic creature comforts and certainty about what the next day will bring. That she transforms herself from a Bedouin boy into a proper English lady at the earliest opportunity is perfectly logical. Readers who find English-Zenia tedious or bitchy misunderstand her character completely by assuming that she, like Winter, should see life as one jolly adventure.

3. Then there is the East-West difference. Zenia's worldview, we are told and shown, is essentially oriental: she is deeply superstitious, fearful of curses, genies, etc. Winter is a man of science, a product of European enlightenment. It is not hard to understand why Zenia and he might not see eye-to-eye on basic things.

Why does she hold him at arm's length, despite the best counsel of everyone around her, despite her own feelings for him, despite his obviously sincere and honorable courtship? Because she recognizes that they come from two different worlds; she doesn't trust him to settle down in England and be the kind of husband/father that she needs him to be. She cannot contemplate going back to the isolated, hand-to-mouth, nomadic existence that she knew before reaching England; and she believes (with reason) that Winter is incapable of changing from wanderer to couch potato, no matter what he says.

Looked at this way, the wonder isn't that Zenia holds out against Winter as long as she does, but that she yields to him at all.

Kinsale is a fine writer. And like most fine writers, she rewards the reader who takes the trouble to ponder her meaning. The Dream Hunter is a book that actually deserves to be reread, offering nuances of character, narrative structure and plot to the careful reader.

This is one of my favorite books, but then I spent 10 years in the Middle East, and have a particular thing for those intrepid Victorian explorers, the ladies like Isabelle Earnhardt and Hester Stanhope, and the Burton/Spekes types. A variation on that theme was right up my alley in a way it might not be for a generic reader… A lot of these reviews mention characterization, but what satisfies some readers/Amazon reviewers as laudable character development in this genre, rarely approaches the basic literary minimum. ... The story in The Dream Hunter is propelled by the biographies of the characters. This is always true in a Kinsale novel, even when her plots sometimes fail to congeal. So, for example, I found the mother and father of Winter to be extremely affecting – the mother is presented as so emotionally detached as to be among the walking dead, but in the course of exposition it is revealed that her detachment might be a reasonable adaptation to the losses in her life. The parents’ attempts to cocoon their only child to survive to adulthood, were mis-choices made out of love. Ultimately their parenting style created the very sort of son they feared the most: one of these Victorian adventure-travelers. It seems inevitable that Winter would become a (shy & awkward) thrill-seeking wanderer, if only in reaction to his parents’ zero-risk form of caring. And I think Winter wanders because of his own innate sense of outsider-ness, which is only appropriate in a foreign location, but can be very isolating in one’s own setting. There are some who have not been able to relate to Zenia. I found her actions to be internally consistent. Having been born into extremely dysfunctional circumstances, and raised (trans-genderly?) among the Bedu, she developed the childhood fantasy, a coping strategy, that she was really an English lady, with an English father who would welcome and rescue her, if only she could get to him. If only her somewhat deranged, all-powerful mother would not prevent her. It is true that she does have a hard time recognizing a conventional pair-bond when it presents itself, some readers have found that annoying. But for all his social awkwardness, Winter did grow up in an intact two-parent household; Zenia, however, was brought up loving and fearing her legendary mother. Zenia is only replicating the world as she has experienced it when she thinks to raise her daughter without benefit of father. She can’t really imagine a role for Winter in the mother-daughter bond. And never having had a “normal” male-female relationship modeled to her – how should she react to Winter’s (not entirely benign) overtures except with prudent caution? I’m sure she would be pleased to discover that people interpreted her actions as springing from an emasculating sense of power (“Zenia calling all the shots” as one reviewer here put it) – when actually the search for love and security propel her decisions. What I like best in this novel is that everybody’s motivations are so human, so compensatory and pathetic – everyone acts out of their deepest need for love and connection – even when they do horrendous things. There are no one-dimensional characters here, only readers who have failed to perceive their complexity.

I've read through the reviews, and do understand why some people may not like the book as much -- we are so used to both characters all ready for love and with totally secure attachment styles. however, real life is not like that, many people (and I'm sure readers can identify with this) grow up with pretty messed up atachment styles -- we want so much to be loved, but are so scred ot rejection or being hurt as well.
I loved this book because the characters are human -- you understand why they do what they do (they at consistently... unlike some other characters I've read who *suddenly* change in the middle of the story), even if you ache for them or don't necessarily agree with their choices.

For me, a romance novel works when I feel that somehow, the hero and the heroine's love makes them each a better person than they would be without each other - that sense of "connection and belonging." This book is definitely worth the read. I'm not a big Kinsale fan; in fact, the only other book by her that I've liked is "The Shadow and the Star."
The hero, Lord Winter, is definitely likeable. He seems to have the typically pampered aristocratic life, but the lack of warmth in his familial relationships and extreme shyness cause him to seek a sense of purpose in travel to exotic locales. Zenia, the heroine, has had a rough childhood, with only a mother who is one of those larger than life characters that can be overbearing. Without a stable family background, Zenia is also lost. She seeks an identity for herself by secretly hoping to go back to England and become an English lady. Lord Winter and Zenia meet. They then go through a series of events and misunderstandings that bring them together then pull them apart. Some people found this journey to be annoying because they could not understand Zenia's motivations. Zenia's extreme resistance to a seemingly perfect match is understandable within the context of her childhood.
Overall, it is truly a touching, realistic depiction of two people who are seeking an "anchor", which they could find only in each other.

Laura Kinsale continues her tradition of writing romance with unusual settings, flawed characters you want to root for, and a beautiful, unique style. The plot revolves around a search through the desert for a mythical mare known as the String of Pearls. Arden Winter never suspects that the Bedu boy acting as his guide is in fact a girl of English parentage desperate to return to the homeland she's never visited. The two at first seem like opposites. She grew up in the wilderness, but longs for the security of England. He grew up under the constraints of an English gentleman's upbringing, but wanted adventure and danger. It turns out, though, that they have more in common than they first suspect. Kinsale is the best at creating tortured characters whom you desperately want to find happiness, and then making you doubt that they will, not an easy thing to do in a genre novel. This one is one of my favorites of her work.

I always feel at a loss when discussing Kinsale's books--there's just so much to them.

The Dream Hunter is the story of Zenia and Lord Winter. She is the illegitimate daughter of an English lord and a powerful Englishwoman who's lived in the north African desert for all of Zenia's life. Lord Winter is an only son who's become an adventurer in reaction to first overprotection and then pressure to settle down.

He was born to wealth and privilege and plenty of loving, if stifling, attention. She was born to a mother who spent wealth as soon as she accrued it with little left for a daughter whose existence she preferred to forget.

They meet when Lord Winter is searching for a fabled horse. Zenia's mother, with whom he'd been acquainted, has just died, and he rescues Zenia, who's disguised as a young Arab boy, from the resulting chaos. He then hires "Selim" as his guide--the cost being to take "him" to England.

Eventually, they're captured, Selim/Zenia's identity is revealed, and... (avoiding spoilers here)... the story moves to England.

This is not your usual romance. In a usual romance, Zenia would be a plucky chit who'd charm everyone, but would retain her desert wildness. If you've read Kinsale before, you know better than to expect the usual. Zenia's much more realistic than that. She's grown up in a culture where women are chattel, and she disguises herself initially, not (like the usual romance heroine) to be marginally more independent, or freer, but to save her life. She fully expects that being discovered to be female would mean being sold into slavery. Her overriding goal, the one thing that keeps her going, is to get to England, find her father, and become an English lady.

Her goal is the exact opposite of Lord Winter's--the kind of life she longs for is exactly what he's trying to escape.

The whole story, the whole conflict between the two of them, stems from their characters, which in turn stem from their histories. It's an amazing piece of characterization, and I'm completely in awe.

The setting is just as vivid--from the hot desert sun (in particular as they're traveling through the most dangerous/arid part of the desert) to the cool greenness of England, I felt I was there.

I just can't rave enough about this book, or Kinsale's writing in general. She's never disappointed me yet.

I'm reading Dream Hunter again and it blows me away every time. Other reviewers have commented on the characters and plot, so no need to be redundant. Kinsale amazes me each time I read her writing. Never, ever read one of her top books only once, because you will miss a lot. Her plot is 10 out of 10 and the characters are the same. In Dream Hunter, the historical detail is also amazing, just like the medical details in Flowers from the Storm. So the first time around you can miss one level because you get drawn to another. The psychological depth she achieves in her characters is stunning, and has to be understood one layer at a time. About the fifth reading, you see how some line was placed in to deepen the character, and you didn't stop long enough to get it on the fourth reading. It's like opening a present, that's new each time.

Kinsale is the best in this genre and Dream Hunter is one of her best, changing like any work of art, as you see it from some new direction. Do not miss it. And don't miss Shadow and the Star, or Flowers from the Storm, Prince of Midnight, or For My Lady's Heart. Actually, make sure to read anything she writes. She's so far ahead of everybody else, even in her weaker books.

Not so much the love story as the character study and brilliantly subtle feel of the settings keep you reading this book. Laura Kinsale is the best. No sap, just real people with true problems trying to cope in an imperfect world. I've read all of her books and found something that grips the imagination in every one of them. Keep them coming Ms Kinsale!

A beautiful story, like all of Ms. Kinsale's work. Her richly imagined, unconventional characters with very real flaws and internal conflicts makes her books unusual in the romance genre and the reason I keep coming back time and again. I eagerly anticipate her next effort...

This is the book I judge reviewers by. If they don't love (at least respect) this book, I really don't care what they think about anything else.

Many may not like this book because it doesn't fit their view of a romance novel: unrealistic wish-fulfillment fantasy. Their heroine and hero, despite having been raised by people without character and kindness, grow up to be perfect, lovable people (except for that little difficulty with commitment he, or less frequently she, has). They are soul mates, understanding each other perfectly by the end. Stepchildren learn to love their stepparents in 30 pages or less. The villains are evil to the core with no redeeming qualities. The good people, perfect. The characters have walked right out of the other books you have read.

If that's what you are looking for, this isn't it.

The lead characters carry deeply the imprint of their flawed parents. He would have been happier raised by her mother, and she is more comfortable in his parent's milieu after a year than he is after a lifetime. They communicate the way real people do without a script. They stumble toward love and understanding and, in part, love without understanding.

Even walk-on characters are fully realized. Dialogue is not only realistic; it does what good dialogue is supposed to. The crumbling ruin at the beginning, the shifting sands of the desert, the cold elegance of the hero's father's home and other locations the characters pass through come alive. The plot is unique (An often misused word, but not in the case of Kinsale's plots; they are always "one of a kind.").

This book does break one of my rules: It involves actual people, doing things they didn't do. However, I'm willing to give Kinsale a pass this time. I, however, will seek out more information on Hester Stanhope, the real "Queen of the Desert" and her temporary consort.

I am tempted to reveal the "charming" ending. It might be the perfect romance novel ending, even for one of those "perfect" romances!