Amazon.com (ISBN 0446607207, Mass Market Paperback)

Meet Ashley Patterson, the brainy, babelicious "computer whiz" and confused heroine of Tell Me Your Dreams. Although she has a cushy job at Global Computer Graphics, a fast-growing start-up in Silicon Valley, her life falls short of fulfilling. She's lonely, shy, and absolutely convinced she's being stalked. What's worse, the only sympathetic ear around is her father, Dr. Patterson, the heartless heart surgeon, who has the charm of an electric eel and the compassion of a tarantula. Given her options, Ashley looks to the heavens for support and offers up an ultimatum to the Almighty: "I'll make a deal with you, God. If it doesn't rain, it means that everything is all right, that I've been imagining everything." Of course, it starts raining buckets just paragraphs later, setting off a car alarm of an omen about our computer cutie's fate.

Enter Toni Prescott and Alette Peters. They both work with Ashley at Global Computer Graphics, but the similarities end there. Toni is a saucy, British vixen with a penchant for Internet dating and discotheques. La bella Italiana Alette, on the other hand, is a wannabe artist who prefers quiet, dreamy weekends with beefcake painters. Reminiscent of junior high school, Toni and Alette do their best to keep Ashley out of their cool clique, but find it difficult when a string of murders irrevocably binds them together. Based on a true story and laden with realistic details--not to mention a whopper of an ending--Tell Me Your Dreams is vintage Sheldon. However, there is one necessary caveat: avoid moviegoer types who insist on telling you the entire plot before you have a chance to see it. You should be doing this anyway, but take extra care with this book. Once the surprise ending is blown, so is the fun in reading it. --Rebekah Warren