Customer Reviews

Dreamscapes: Imminent Thunder

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the Shadows line-the darker side of love-and one of my favourites, because the characters are so well-drawn. I loved Honor Nightingale and her reclusive neighbor, Ian McLaren. The paranormal element, prevelent in this series, was handled so deftly and elegantly!I had no trouble believing Honor's newly-purchased house was haunted by a malevolent old woman's ghost. The play between McLaren's Ranger training and his strength against Honor's past and her own insecurites is nicely balanced. We understand her and as she begins to know Ian, we understand him, too. He's certainly unique, and no other woman but Honor would have had the courage to stick with him. And she doesn't think she's anything special. This is a truly different romance, with unusual protagonists and a believable villain.

I could not put this book down. The characters were wonderful and you really feel the pain the hero goes through with his special gift (or should I say curse).

Honor, a nurse, begins to see and feel strange things in her new home causing her to run to Ian, her reclusive next door neighbor for help. Ian doesn't really like contact with people because of his "strange" ablility but feels he must help Honor. While they try to figure out what is happening they feel a powerful attraction between each other that they can't deny. Find the book if you can because this is definately a keeper. I've read it about 20 times....

I loved this book. It was very suspenseful and entertaining. The characters were very interesting. They were both strong willed personalities that meshed well. The way Ms. Lee works the supernatural in with the real world is great. I loved this story.

Returning home late one night from her nursing shift at the hospital, Honor Nightingale's keys get locked in her car and she becomes spooked by a noise from her house. That's all she needs to set her off running next door to her reclusive neighbor for help. She's never met Ian McLaren, but the ex-Ranger is more than capable of dealing with any intruders. The house is empty when McLaren checks it out, but Honor is still shaken and accepts the invitation to stay in his guest room overnight until he can help her make her house more secure.

Honor is grateful for McLaren's help, but her unease continues to grow as it becomes evident that something is terribly wrong in her house--a malevolent presence that seems to mean harm to Honor. Soon, Honor and McLaren find themselves fighting demons--those that torment them from their pasts, as well as the growing evil emanating from Honor's house.

Honor is also troubled and confused by McLaren. She feels an undeniable attraction to this complex man, but she is also uncertain how he fits in with the mysterious events in her house. Ian grew up in the home he now occupies, but left as a young man after being shunned by both family and community for his strange abilities and supposedly unspeakable crimes. As troubled as his childhood was, he also witnessed true evil in his years as a soldier. He will need every bit of the inner strength he developed as he fights for his and Honor's future.

This was a sexy, sultry, spooky read. Rachel Lee (the writing team of Sue Civil-Brown and Cristian Brown) skillfully used the northwest Florida setting to evoke a sense of danger and menace, contributing to paranormal and sexual tension--and, yes, there was loads of sexual tension between Honor and McLaren.

As thrilling and as "full" as this book was, tho, I did wish the author had expounded a bit more on Honor's and McLaren's pasts. The events of Honor's childhood were apparently more significant than even she realized, and I would have been interested in a more complete exploration of these memories and her potential. (I also would have liked to have gotten more of a physical sense of Honor. Unless I missed it, there was no description of her appearance and that made it difficult for me to put a "face" on her.) Similarly, the glimpses into McLaren's adult life in the army were also fascinating tidbits that I would have liked to have seen more developed.

Without divulging too much, I also felt as if the ending took the easy way out. The malevolent entity took decisive action that it really could have taken far earlier--either directly or by influencing others--in order to resolve its dilemma. That said, it is pretty easy to overlook these minor complaints of mine and just sit back and enjoy one good, ghostly story. Just leave the lights on. . .


(Note: This is a re-issue of a 1993 book.)

"Imminent Thunder" is the first Dreamscape I have read; I did not regret it!

-I could feel myself immersed in the Ghostly Atmosphere that lays in Honor's House and in the area surrounding it. The Hero, Ian, is fantastic, brave and sensual. Honor is a Heroine with compassion and tenderness who has never found true love before meeting Ian. If you like a spine tiggling, a sensual and a so romantic novel, you can't go wrong with "Imminent Thunder". It is a Keeper!

I have to say, I was quite pleasantly surprised by this book. The summary and the reviews all made it sound interesting, so I knew that the love story would be good, but I wasn't prepared for just how great a ghost story this book presents. All too often, when writers attempt to tell tales of haunted houses, they fall back on familiar, the-gorier-the-better tropes, but happily, that is not the case here. One of the more significant aspects of the ghost story is how the house makes Honor and Ian feel, and that is written in such vivid detail that the readers are actually able to experience most of those chills, goosebumps, and intense feelings of danger and foreboding for themselves. The ghost itself is a particularly nasty piece of work, and quite a powerful one, as well, as it is able to manipulate not only people's actions but also their senses. None of this is over-the-top or even requires all that much of a suspension of disbelief - it all feels as though it could realistically happen, which makes it all the more frightening, and is a true testament to the writing's effectiveness.

As for the love story, Ian is an incredible character; hardened by unimaginable horrors in his childhood and years of military service, he is utterly self-contained and understandably wary when it comes to allowing anyone to get close to him; in fact, he has never allowed that to happen because of the pain and rejection he has endured since he was a small boy. All of this doesn't make him cold and cruel, though; in fact, given all that he has gone through, it is a wonder how selfless and honorable he is. He is a true alpha male, but not overbearingly so, since the reader is privy to his motivations and feelings at every turn.

Honor, in my view, isn't not quite as three dimensional a character, but she is still interesting in her own right, given her own past full of pain and rejection, and the reserves of strength she must tap into frequently as she deals with more than her fair share of terror and danger.

The romance between these characters is not one in which it is immediately overpowering lust-at-first-sight (though some of that does come into play). Instead, it is the product of an organic journey in which they come to know and truly understand one another, and in the process, help one another overcome the immense pain in their pasts. Their love story is by turns heart-wrenching and passionate, and always powerful and realistic (even though the time-frame in which all of this occurs is a matter of days).

In all honesty, I went into this book thinking it would be a good read, but I was not expecting it to be as great and utterly absorbing as it was. This is most definitely a title I would recommend to anyone interested in a powerful love story that tugs at the heart strings, with the added bonus of a truly frightening ghost story.