Damina Nicaud, a beautiful, successful art buyer in Washington, D.C., is plagued by hauntingly romantic dreams of a mystery man every night. While she knows she shouldn’t consider her dreams to be anything more than anxiety brought on by her upcoming nuptials, she can’t help but be lured into its entreat. Unbeknownst to her, the dreamscape that plagues her mind will be all that carries her … through eventual heartbreak and learning the truth of her orphaned lineage. She is more than human. Escaping to New Orleans on the heels of her broken heart, she begins to unravel the mystery of her life while discovering a love powerful enough to unleash an ancient power residing within herself. Weaving through a world of artistic passion, vampires, wolves, and the supernatural,
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I am a little torn with this story. I really liked it at first then got very frustrated with the MC. Though toward the end, her motivations made more sense to me, I still am having issues with her. I enjoyed Dalcour and Jackson’s stories much more than hers. My other struggle was with word usage. The author consistently swaps nodding and shaking of heads using the opposite term of what was meant. It’s a small thing really, but it happened often enough to bother me. There were other off putting editing issues as well (i.e. missing words and wrong words) but not enough to make me stop reading. Overall, it was a good book.
L.C. Son’s Beautiful Nightmare reminded me so perfectly why I love this genre so very much. Gripping and breath-catching, this book was a genuine pageturner. Filled with twist and turns, and an ending that makes me desperate for the next book, this book is definitely 1-click material.
The characters, their connection, their journeys, and developments were well crafted and superbly detailed.
Enjoy getting lost in this fabulous paranormal fantasy romance.
Page turning romance! Look forward to book #2!
Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to get this book for an honest review.
2.5
This is the first book I read by this author and definitely the last, reminder to stop reading books that attract me because of their cover, positive point the cover is beautiful and the synopsis catches you, but this book was not for me.
The book is about Damina Nicaud, a young and “independent” woman, who for various reasons ends up leaving her fiancé Jackson the day before their wedding (he deserves it), travels to New Orleans to visit her mother’s grave and discover her past while overcoming her broken heart. In that place, she realizes that people are very strange and nothing is what it seems. She meets Dalcour Marchand, an attractive man with a lot of money, they both know each other for the work she ended up doing in his mansion, and little by little they grew closer until they form a relationship (?).
Having said that, the beginning is boring and very descriptive, personally, I hate unnecessary descriptions and comments, and this book has too many, literally, THE ENTIRE book was like that (I will talk about that later), second something very personal that I hate to die is public marriage/dating proposals, so even if it was only a mention I hate it. Now I don’t judge the sexual life of people and less the decisions they make about it, but I don’t know when a man tells you that he wants to wait until marriage to keep you pure it disgusts me, okay, I do not believe in waiting until marriage, but that depends on each one. That means a virgin heroine, nothing new.
But that is not the important thing because I will take care of destroying Jackson later, the relationship between Damina and Dal was non-existent, that is, they are supposed to be soulmates (it was more insta-lust) but there is no chemistry! No spark, nothing, so their relationship felt forced to me but I must emphasize that I liked that Dal tried to make Damina more confident and respected her. I like Dalcour but I feel like he keeps a lot of secrets and I didn’t really get to know his character.
Let’s move on to Damina, oh boy, I don’t hate her but she’s infuriating. It stresses me that the author has created a character who according to her is strong and independent, but the only thing she knows how to do is run away, not make decisions by herself, hate every man (listen there is no one who hates man more than me but it was excessive), to think that every woman she meets is controlling, I really wish she had answered Jackson hows he spoke to or looked at all women. And the worst of all, she does drama for everything.
Let’s move on to her ex-fiance (?), I hate him to die, I hope he dies we don’t need him, oh and if it’s a love triangle although I never thought it would be until we reached the end. He is what people call the “perfect man”, I call him a passive controller, you know a man who is so great that he respects you and makes you think that you have an opinion, but in reality little by little, he is controlling your life. How great that Damina’s car was bought by him, or her phone, or he helped her fix her house, or he can locate her by her phone and bank account because he owns it, or it so happens that his connections helped her get a work just to get her away from a friend who saw the trash that Jackson is and worked with her. That’s how bad he is but he is a good man who protects her and yet she is blind to all that until the end and loves him. Disgusting.
Like, he said this:
If she had a man when we first met, she wouldn’t have interfered so much in our relationship.
Secondary characters
Allyson is the only person who knows how to use her head and she helped Damina, unfortunately, she didn’t appear much in the book other than when Damina thought she was annoying for worrying about her, anyway. She really deserves the best in the world and I’m glad she was the one who helped her.
Dacari, I hate her, she’s an annoying character. She is too dependent on her mother, she does everything she tells her and doesn’t think for herself, the woman is 25 years old and cannot make decisions without her mother. Not to mention how she wants everything to be about her and of course, goes and creates an unnecessary drama with some of the best characters in the book, because of course men and women cannot be friends and they all want to be with the hero. She had her good moments when she helped and defended Damina and hated Jackson but from there on out, I didn’t really like her.
Jerrica, is the one who sent the invitation to Damina and I loved her, she was just what she needed to distract herself and a great friend listening to her, what happened in the end with her character was unnecessary but still, she is one of my favorites from the book
Delia, Damina’s aunt, and Dacari’s mother is trash, period. Jackson’s friends are trash too, they grossed me out.
On the other hand, the people Damina worked with were each different and I liked them too much. Brae is the best version of Dacari, she is what Dacari wanted to be but couldn’t, I loved her relationship with Damina, Mark I didn’t think I would like him so much but in general, he was entertaining. Brian is one of the best and he deserves better than Dacari, I liked how he helped Damina, and above all that he cared about her well-being.
There are more characters to mention but we return to the same thing that they were unnecessary, I don’t understand why the author put them, they didn’t contribute absolutely anything to the story. Speaking of the story I wonder what the plot was about, you see it had no objective, seriously everything felt unnecessary, at the end of the book we were finally having a plot. This book is definitely not for me, it has many things that can be improved. I would say that I was pleased to see how Damina’s character grew but it really didn’t.
Is this book for you?
Premise in a sentence:
The story of a woman who travels to a city to mend her broken heart, only to discover that her life is not what it seems.
Perfect for:
Lovers of the paranormal.
Do I recommend it?
No.
TW: toxic relationships, panic attacks, violence.
Troupe: Romance, paranormal, vampires, love triangle.
Heroine: 5/10
Hero: 6/10
Romance: 4/10
Steamy Scenes: 2/10
Violence/dark scenes: 2/10
Plot: 6/10