House of Dreams [Hardcover]

Joyce Brenda (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: St Martin's Press (2000)
• ISBN-10: 0312271662
• ISBN-13: 978-0312271664
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Brenda Joyce is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of fourty-nine novels and five novellas. There are over fourteen million copies of her novels in print and she is published in over a dozen foreign countries. A native New Yorker, she now lives in southern Arizona with her son, dogs and numerous Arabian and Half-Arabian reining horses. Brenda divides her time between her twin passions' writing powerful love stories and her quest to become a nationally ranked Top Ten equestrian. For more information about Brenda and her upcoming novels, please visit her websites: www.brendajoyce.com, www.francescacahillseries.com www.thedewarennedynasty.com and www.mastersoftimebooks.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars "The others had gathered in the library for drinks before reporting the murder...", November 23, 2006

By 

shereads - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: House of Dreams (Mass Market Paperback)

In the space of 48 hours at an isolated estate, one woman dies, two go missing and the host's beloved wife - who vanished 8 years ago from the same house - is seen looking in a window.

Do you:

(a) contact the police

(b) organize a search

(c) take the children and leave

(d) gather in the library for drinks

(e) none of the above

If your answer is "d," you're too early by one murder. They don't gather in the library for drinks or consider getting the police involved, until a man is found stabbed to death on the property. Time to stop arguing and spring into action - almost! First, hors d'oevres.

Once in a while, you read something so awful you begin to enjoy it as comedy. I've chosen to believe that Brenda Joyce intended "House of Dreams" to be tongue-in-cheek. Which also explains why, when a character blurts out a cliff-hanger confession, accusation or other line that ought to ignite a big scene, the author usually skips that part and moves on.

I gave in to the laughter when, on the morning after a life-shattering confrontation between two sisters in love with one man, the good sister knocks on the other's bedroom door and chirps, "Wake up, lazybones!"

Be forewarned, there's not a likeable character or a credible moment in this whole mishmash. Then enjoy it for laughs, assuming you didn't pay big bucks for the unabridged audio CD. In which case, the joke is on you. (And me.)

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good story, but needs a proofreader and a thesaurus, December 26, 2002

By 

Jackie M. Bachenberg "theoriginaljfmmb" (Canton, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: House of Dreams (Mass Market Paperback)

Ms. Joyce tells a good tale, she just needs a good proofreader and needs to invest in and use a thesaurus.

The tale itself is a mixture of mystery, historical novel, and romance. The base of the story is that a woman who died 400 years ago is linked to two families. She feels that these two families betrayed her and she's still out to get them. The story mixes modern world with the story of this woman from 400 years in the past. Meanwhile, in modern times, you've got a pretty scary ghost story going on. The story itself is highly entertaining, as long as you don't pay attention to the details. Think of it as that highly entertaining, but critically unaclaimed movie that you watch just for fun. If you get caught up in the details that just aren't right, then make a game of it, because otherwise, it will make you crazy.

When I say it needs proofing, I'm not kidding. There are places where a man is described as wearing a black coat and then two pages latter it's blue. She describes a young boy as having polio. Now this takes place in modern times and this child is less than ten years old. To my knowledge, a case of polio hasn't been reported in Western Europe in the last 10 or 20 years, so that's just totally bogus!! And then there was my favorite proofing error, "She hid her hands behind her face." I'm not sure this is anatomically possible.

Ms. Joyce needs to get a thesaurus to try and cure her overuse of the word gaze. She loves this word, both as a noun and a verb and in one nights reading, I kept track. The longest Ms. Joyce could go without using some variation of this beloved word was two pages.

If you want a fun read, go for it. But don't be looking for literary excellence.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars -, February 4, 2006

By 

Jennino95 - See all my reviews

This review is from: House of Dreams (Mass Market Paperback)

This does not hold up to the standards I'm used to expect from Brenda Joyce. I agree with some of the other reviews that she needed a proofreader. The parts in Spanish where atrocious. Also, the plot, oh my god, the plot. The story was convoluted in an unnecessary way. Don't get me wrong I'm a fan of gothic romances but this was too much. The characters where either oblivious or ridiculous, or both. If this is your first Brenda Joyce read, please choose another book.