Falling Awake [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Jayne Ann Krentz (Author), Laural Merlington (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 18, 2004

A red scarf. A roller coaster. A tidal wave of blood. Isabel Wright spends her days at the Belvedere Center for Sleep Research analyzing the dreams of others. Dr. Martin Belvedere, a pioneer in the field, recognized her unique talent for what he calls Level Five lucid dreaming - and rescued her from a dead-end job at the psychic dreamer hotline. It’s satisfying, lucrative work, but it can be emotionally draining at times. Especially when one of her anonymous subjects, known only as Client Number Two, captures her imagination through his compelling dream narratives. Secretly, she thinks of him as “dream man.” Client Number Two’s real name is Ellis Cutler. A loner who learned long ago not to let anyone get too close, he works for a highly classified government agency with an interest in the potential value of lucid dreaming. And he has just been ordered by his boss to make contact with Isabel, who’s been fired after the sudden death of Dr. Belvedere. Heading to California, he pushes his own fantasies out of his mind, determined to maintain a professional relationship with the woman who reads his dreams, the mysterious figure he has come to think of as “Tango Dancer.” But when they meet in the flesh, the dream becomes real enough to touch. And a waking nightmare begins - when a suspicious hit-and-run leads them into a perilous web of passion, betrayal and murder, and forces them to walk the razor-thin line between dreams and reality. . . .

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Isabel Wright, a Belvedere Center for Sleep Research analyst and Level Five lucid dreamer, meets the man of her dreams in bestseller Krentz's (Truth or Dare, etc.) romantic thriller. When Isabel's boss, Martin Belvedere, is found dead in his study, his son, Randolph, who was always scornful of his father's belief in dreamers capable of uncovering secrets, takes over the business. He fires Isabel before he realizes that her crime-solving through dreams pays most of the center's bills. Isabel trains to be a motivational speaker while falling into the arms of fellow lucid dreamer Ellis Cutler (aka "Dream Man"), whose dreams she had been decoding and who has likewise been dreaming of her (he thinks of her as "Tango Dancer"). Isabel's former co-workers at the Belvedere Center and Ellis's colleagues from his secret government agency provide a rich assortment of suspects and victims who must be sorted out by the lover-detectives as they wrestle good guys from the dark side, repair troubled marriages and fix ailing businesses. Though her New Age imagination sometimes runs into overdrive, Krentz holds her readers' attention with attractive, appealing protagonists, flawed but sympathetic secondary characters and winningly self-mocking humor. Her unflagging positive energy proves so overwhelming that the reader will happily make her way through a story that defies logic, based on psychology that defies reason, to a happy ending that defies description.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Isabel Wright thought that the new director of the Belvedere Center for Sleep Research wanted to meet to discuss her promotion; instead, Isabel is informed that her services are no longer required. With the dearth of available openings for dream analysts, Isabel is prepared to return to her old job at the Psychic Dream Hotline. But Ellis Cutler, one of two anonymous clients from the sleep research center whose dreams Isabel had been analyzing, offers Isabel the opportunity to come work for his employer, Frey-Salter, Inc., a highly classified government agency involved in dream research and the use of extreme dreaming as an investigative technique. Working for Frey-Salter, Inc., would be a dream come true for Isabel, as long as it's on her terms. Ellis is more than willing to give Isabel a more active role in his investigations, but their mutual attraction may make keeping things strictly professional between them mighty difficult. New York Times best-selling Krentz excels at crafting superior, sexy romantic suspense, and her latest has all the ingredients her readers love: a riveting plot, a nicely developed romance between a smart and independent heroine and a tough yet tender hero, and her unique, delightfully dry wit. John Charles
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio; Abridged edition (November 18, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593551525
• ISBN-13: 978-1593551520
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,820,360 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #55 in Books > Books on Cassette > Authors, A-Z > ( K ) > Krentz, Jayne Ann

More About the Author

The author of over 50 New York Times bestsellers, JAYNE ANN KRENTZ writes romantic-suspense, often with a psychic and paranormal twist, in three different worlds: Contemporary (as Jayne Ann Krentz), historical (as Amanda Quick) and futuristic (as Jayne Castle). There are over 35 million copies of her books in print.

Building on the success of her DREAMLIGHT TRILOGY in 2010, Jayne is now focused on writing the LOOKING GLASS TRILOGY. This series will follow the Quicksilver Mirror (a paranormal artifact) through all three of Jayne's worlds covering a time span of several hundred years.

The first LOOKING GLASS book, IN TOO DEEP, will feature Fallon Jones, a recurring character from Jayne's contemporary ARCANE SOCIETY series of novels.

When she's not writing, Jayne can be found at her favorite social networking site posting messages to her fans.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing, December 18, 2004

By 

G. Greene - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Falling Awake (Hardcover)

This is a good (but not great) JAK novel. All of the wonderful writing that one expects from her is present, and the book is well plotted and extremely well researched. It may lack a little of the magic of her best work, but it is still a very good read and better than most of the books in this genre that you will find on the market today. I would have liked a somewhat stronger heroine, and the book does start out a little slow. These are minor considerations; the really fascinating dream research more than compensates for these small lacks.

Definitely recommended.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deftly woven tale, December 1, 2004

By 

A. Dolan (Malden, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Falling Awake (Hardcover)

As other reviewers have said, this is one of JAK's finest - several story threads, woven together in an tight, unexpected way, with plenty of her signature humor and intelligent dialog. Other reviewers have ably described the plot. Although the Publisher's Weekly editorial says the story is 'based on psychology that defies reason', I suggest that JAK has pushed the bounds of believability no more than any good writer. In fact, on page 215, JAK lists several dream research authors - all of whom can be found on Amazon! If you enjoy JAK, or Jayne Castle, there's no reason not to add this to your library.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Falling Awake, March 25, 2008

By 

Kelly "Reviewer for The Sinfully Sensuous" (Littleton, Colorado) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Falling Awake (Hardcover)

Isabel Wright analyzes dreams at the Belvedere Center for Sleep Research. Her work is very high level and no one is privy to what her work actually entails. She has the uncanny ability to not only interpret dreams but correct things that go wrong in them. She currently only has two clients, but she has been helping them since she has been at the center. The dreams that she has been working on disturb her, and she secretly has a crush on one of her clients that she only knows as Client #2. When Dr Belvedere is found dead, and his son takes over the center, he fires Isabel thinking her type of work is frivolous and against the reputation he wants to build at Belvedere.

Client #2 is Ellis Cutler. He has used Isabel's talents to solve police cases that are unsolvable, and has recently relocated to California to be near Isabel. He feels the same connection to her, as she does to him. When he finds out her employment has been terminated, he decides to get close to her in order to bring her on with his former employer. Ellis wants Isabel to help him solve a murder, and doesn't hesitate to use her to do it, but when Isabel becomes the next potential victim, he vows to protect her. When Ellis and Isabel discover that Dr. Belvedere was indeed murdered, the need to solve these mysteries becomes paramount.

I thought that the chemistry was lacking between Ellis and Isabel. It was not written to be very believable for two people to fall in love in their dreams in such a short time, and so I wasn't buying the story from the beginning.