In The Book of Dreams, Nina George continues to explore love, life and mortality. With a similarly luminescent quality as its predecessors--The Little Paris Bookshop and The Little French Bistro--The Book of Dreams shines light into the hidden spaces of each character's soul. The living make life-altering decisions while the almost dying experience alternate paths, showcasing what life could have been.
Sam, Henri, Eddie, Maddie: four lives converge at London's Wellington Hospital. Sam and Eddie are there visiting. Henri and Maddie are patients in comatose states. All four are living double lives. Sam skips school to spend time with the father he never knew and the girl he's falling in love with. Eddie hides her daily visits to Henri--her secret heartbreak, the former love of her life--from her current partner.
Henri and Maddie are both trapped in dreams. Henri is trying to find his way back to life (but which version of life being shown to him is real?), while Maddie is too scared to move forward.
Quietly meditative and exquisitely plotted, there is nonetheless a feeling of urgency to the story, as the days pass with each turning of the page, making it less and less likely that Henri or Maddie will find their way back to consciousness. By the final chapters, a lyrical crescendo is building, leading to a dramatic conclusion and a graceful coda, so that, like life, there is no guarantee of a happy ending, yet no one is left bereft at the end of the tale. --BrocheAroe Fabian, owner, River Dog Book Co., Beaver Dam, Wis.