Dream
Series by James DiBenedetto Tour
Dates:
May 19 - June 1
Author
Bio:
J.J.
(James) DiBenedetto was born in Yonkers, New York. He attended Case
Western Reserve University, where as his classmates can attest, he
was a complete nerd. Very little has changed since then.
He
currently lives in Arlington, Virginia with his beautiful wife and
their cat (who has thoroughly trained them both). When he's not
writing, James works in the direct marketing field, enjoys the opera,
photography and the New York Giants, among other interests.
The
"Dreams" series is James' first published work.
Here
are the links:
Blog
(my blog)
About the Books:
Sara Barnes (later Sara Alderson, when she’s married) starts out in book 1 as an ordinary college student, until she learns she can see into other people’s dreams. That’s the basic premise of the series. The characters who appear in previous books, who also are important in book 4, are:
Sara herself
Brian Alderson – Sara’s husband
Betty & Howard Barnes – Sara’s parents
Helen
and Ben Alderson – Brian’s parents
Lizzie
Alderson – Sara’s oldest child, age 5 ½
Steffy
and Ben Alderson – Sara’s twins, age 2
Laurie
Kensington – Sara’s medical partner, previously her supervisor
during Sara’s residency
Grace
Sorrentino – a patient of Sara’s during her residency, age 8
Paul
Sorrentino – Grace’s father. Also a powerful mob boss, who Sara
faced down at the end of the third book
Beth
Rosewell – Sara’s best friend, dating back to college
Kat
Wells – Sara’s godmother, Betty’s best friend
Rebecca
Brownell – now 21 years old, she was the teenaged girl who Sara
rescued from a killer at the end of the first book
Joseph
Harkness – Sara’s friend from medical school, godfather to Lizzie
Mary
Harkness – Joseph’s wife
Book
One -
In
the first book, in the winter of 1989-90, Sara is a junior in
college, planning on going to medical school. She's a hard
worker, shy, no boyfriend, and perfectly ordinary. But she
begins to have strange dreams. She's not even a character in
these dreams - she sees a strange, creepy man assaulting a teenaged
girl, the same dream every night. She doesn't know the man
or the girl, but then she sees the girl's picture in the newspaper -
she was raped and murdered, her body found on the side of the road.
That's when she realizes, the dreams were the killer's dreams, and
she was seeing into his mind. At the same time, Sara
begins seeing other, random dreams of the people around her,
friends and others in her dorm.
While
this is going on, she's met a guy - a fellow student, Brian, whose
dream she's also seen. He was dreaming of her, and has a
major crush on her, and Sara takes the initiative and goes for
it with him. Over the course of the book, her relationship with
Brian gets very serious very quickly. With the help of Brian,
and also her roommate and best friend Beth, Sara plays detective,
using the clues from her dreams, and old-fashioned legwork, to figure
out who the killer is. It turns out he's a former teacher at
the college, Dr. Walters. At the climax of the book, Sara and
friends figure out where he lives, and go to his house. There,
they rescue another teenager who Dr. Walters is about to murder.
In a final confrontation with Dr. Walters, Sara and Brian are both
injured, but Sara keeps Dr. Walters talking until the police arrive
and arrest him, saving the day. Six months later, Sara sees one
last dream - Brian is dreaming about proposing to her.
Book
Two -
The
second book opens up in the summer of 1991. Sara has just
started her first month of medical school, and she and Brian were
just married a couple of months before. Sara's dreams start up
again, and she sees the dreams of several people in the medical
school, all of whom are dreaming about the death of one of Sara's
teachers, the very unpopular Dr. Morris. Then that teacher
becomes sick, and Sara is convinced he's being poisoned by one of the
people dreaming about him.
While
trying to survive the rigors of medical school, Sara again has to
play detective and figure out which one of the suspects is trying to
kill him, and how. In the end, Sara discovers that it's his
secretary, Maureen Jackson, who's been having a long-term affair with
Dr. Morris. Sara confronts Maureen in Dr. Morris' hospital
room, and in a desperate struggle, she manages to stop Maureen from
finishing the job and killing her lover. Several months later,
with the dreams once again behind her, Sara gets good news - she's
pregnant.
Book
Three -
The
third book jumps ahead to the winter of 1996. Sara finished
medical school and now she's in her second year of residency at
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Her daughter is about to
turn four, and she's just given birth to twins a couple of months
ago. On a trip to Washington, DC for a medical conference, Sara
and her very precocious daughter, Lizzie, run into the wife and son
of her Congressman, and make fast friends with them. That
night, Sara learns that Lizzie shares her talent for dreaming -
Lizzie sees the Congressman's son dreaming. In the dream, the
Congressman is being blackmailed by a "big, scary man with a big
black car." Over the course of the book, Sara investigates
and discovers that the scary man is a powerful mob boss, Paul
Sorrentino. He's also the father of one of Sara's patients at
the hospital.
Blurbs
for each book:
Dream
Student
What
would you do if you could see other people’s dreams? If you could
watch their hidden fantasies and uncover their deepest, darkest
secrets…without them ever knowing?
Sara
Barnes is about to find out. She thought that all she had to worry
about was final exams, Christmas shopping and deciding whether she
likes the cute freshman in the next dorm who’s got a crush on her.
But
when she starts seeing dreams that aren’t hers, she learns more
than she ever wanted to know about her friends, her classmates…and
a strange, terrifying man whose dreams could get Sara killed.
“Dream
Student” is the thrilling first installment of the Dreams series.
***
Dream
Doctor
“I
didn’t expect to be woken up by someone I don’t know dreaming
about killing somebody. I thought I was done with that once and for
all…”
But
Sara’s not done with it. As if adjusting to life as a newlywed and
starting medical school weren’t difficult enough, she’s started
seeing the dreams of everyone around her, again. Before everything
is said and done, those dreams might destroy Sara’s hopes of
becoming a doctor, wreck her marriage and even end her life…
“Dream
Doctor” is the thrilling second novel in the Dreams series.
***
Dream
Child
"I
would give anything to take this away from her. I would gladly go
back to having the nightmares myself – the very worst ones, the
ones that had me waking up screaming in a pool of my own vomit –
rather than see Lizzie go through this..."
As
a resident at Children's Hospital, Sara can handle ninety hour
workweeks, fighting to save her young patients from deadly childhood
diseases. But she's about to be faced with a challenge that all her
training and experience haven't prepared her for: her four-year-old
daughter has inherited her ability to see other people's dreams...
"Dream
Child" is the suspenseful third novel in the "Dreams"
series.
***
Dream
Family
"Why
is this so hard for me? Why am I having so much trouble? Why do I
feel so helpless, so hopeless? What the hell is wrong with me?"
After
tangling with murders and mobsters, not to mention medical school and
three years of residency, Sara thought she could handle anything.
And then the police show up without warning at her new office and
arrest her for a crime she can't possibly have committed. Sara's
confidence, and her grip on reality, is shattered during one
terrifying night in jail.
Now,
the very dreams that have endangered her life and driven her to the
edge of madness may be the only thing that can help Sara find herself
again...
"Dream
Family" is the powerful fourth novel in the "Dreams"
series.
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