Moongazer

Kind of, or actually very Matrix Lite. It's sweet, some good ideas. Not as well written or engaging as it could have been, but nice world building and I liked Skye, and felt for her. Dawn was a bit too perfect but I liked all the plays on the Moon and even though it was predictable, it was also time well spent. I will definitely look for this author again, I think she's trying to do something more interesting and would like to see her grow.

Enter Skye Brown a video game designer that is having some highly realistic nightmares. Due to these dreams she is running on little sleep and caffeine. Which is starting to effect not only her love life but her work performance. Soon she finds that her dreams are based on a reality she would have only thought was possible in one of the fantasy books she likes to read. Soon she is asking who am I Skye or Mariah, where is home Earth or Terra, and who can she really trust Duske or Dawn.

Over all I enjoyed this book and read it pretty quickly. Mari pulled me in and held me captive. Which may make you wonder if I enjoyed it so much they why only 3 stars? The story I give 5 stars, it held me and I didn't want to put it down. The problem came show more with one big formatting error, where suddenly the last few sentences of the chapter appeared right in the middle of a word. Also a couple of times the wrong name was used, a few misspelling and at least have a dozen instances of 1 being used instead of I. I usually try not to let things like this effect my reviews but considering how long this book has been out I would think they should have been caught and fixed by now.

This is the second book of a series called Shomi. The first is Wired by Liz Maverick, they seem to be independent novels in the science fiction romance genre. show less

Skye Brown is having nightmares every night, going to a dark post-apocalyptic bleak world and often fighting for her life. This is wreaking havoc on her life, job and relationships. Then she enters that world unwillingly. They think she is their leader; she just wants to go home. One man sees her as a traitor and another as a tool. What is real? Who is she? This fantasy takes a while to understand and when you think you have the answer there is a twist. Interesting and often intriguing, although I was never really tied to the characters.

This book has an interesting premise with the lead character being Skye, New Yorker to the bone and a clubber, and VR Game programmer to boot, who discovers her reality slipping away after an onset of disturbing dreams where everyone knows her as Mariah.

The story was a quick read and not at all laborious to stick with. Skye sometimes struck me as a bit slow on the uptake, but then again this obtuseness might be understandable considering her circumstances. Her love interest, Dawn, was an interesting guy. Not as macho as you find a lot of modern paranormal/sci-fi romance heroes, although he certainly had his brooding down pat. Ultimately I liked him and thought he was a good foil for the heroine to play off of.

There were a couple things show more that bugged me. The first person, present tense was a bit distracting sometimes and some of the "hip" wording to the book annoyed me. Although I wasn't overly impressed by the writing of the love scene and this wasn't what I would call a steamy romance by any stretch of the imagination, it was sweet romance once the characters got there.

Overall an acceptable diversion with relatively engaging characters and a plot that keeps you reading. show less