I absolutely adored this book!

It's set in 1911, the heyday of mega rich families, old fashioned hotels, drinks on the veranda, gentle dips in pools, and general carefree hedonistic excitement

Peggy Batternberg, heiress to the Batternberg fortune is summoned to the Oriental Hotel along with her family to try to push along her sister's engagement, and for the family to meet their prospective new inlaws. However, Peggy is a new woman and she can't resist venturing out to see the thrills of Coney Island Fair.THis i

After escaping on her own, Peggy finds herself at an art stand.....and also finds herself love.....and death....

This is an absolutely rip roaring ride through the era, and the life of the mega rich - and the very poor, and I absolutely could not get enough of this book!

My thanks to Netgalley and Endeavour Media/Endeavour Quill for the advance copy.

"I'm still composing my opinions, but I think it is a place that exerts a pull that these thousands of people cannot resist because it's the only way they can feel their emotions - through experience of the extreme fear, contempt, delight, and of course, lust.''

Margaret (Peggy) Batternberg is a young women from a privileged, powerful and wealthy New York family. It's 1911 and she benefits from, yet is restricted by her gender and class. When her younger sister, Lydia, is due to marry Henry Taul, she and her family are called to stay at the luxurious Oriental Hotel near Coney Island for the summer, so that reclusive Mrs Taul can meet the family. Peggy knew Henry before Lydia and dislikes him, but accepts the invitation to please her mother and Uncle David. It will mean an enforced summer with her family, including brother Lawrence and cousins Ben and Paul. She soon finds herself in the hottest summer imaginable, staying in America's playground, where the wealthy are kept separate from Coney Islanders highlighting the class divide.

Peggy seeks liberation, secretly visit enigmatic Dreamland (a wild Coney Island attraction), where she meets a man. Meanwhile young women are murdered and she finds herself unintentionally involved. Who is behind the gruesome murders and will Peggy be able to escape the control of the corrupt Batternberg men long enough to find out before she comes to harm?

Glamorous and claustrophobic, Dreamland paints a picture of wealthy, upper class American lives and leisure time in the beginning of the twentieth century. Bigotry and racism, founded in ignorance, were rifre, as was misogyny and double-standards. Patriarchal and controlling, male family members make decisions for the women in the family, which intelligent and feisty Peggy rails against, within acceptable boundaries. I enjoyed Peggy's character particularly, but feel the plot could have been tighter, the story shorter, in places. Extravagant and atmospheric,
Dreamland is a historic mystery full of suspense and obsessions.

This book was a quick historical fiction, focused around murder in Coney Island in the early 1900s, as well as class lines within society.

We follow heiress Peggy Batternberg as she travels to Coney Island with her family and her sisters fiancé and family. We can immediately see that Peggy is more of a black sheep as far as her family is concerned - she was working in a bookshop, which she loved (and didn’t need to be doing), and she quickly falls in love with the people of Coney Island and their livelihood. While the rest of her family has no interest in Coney Island or the lower class, Peggy is fascinated, and falls in love with an immigrant artist. Their love would be frowned upon, based on their different stations in life. As women start turning up dead, the police are quick to suspect people within Coney Island because of their lower station in life, and the wildness in which they live their lives. Peggy strives to uncover the truth to rescue her love, even if that means potentially hurting people around her family.

I really enjoyed the insights into how different classes are treated and how they think in the early 1900s. Peggy is a modern woman, unconcerned with where people come from or what they have in life, and more focused on the people they really are. I really enjoyed this about her! She was smart and spunky - different from the stuck up society members around her. She marches to the beat of her own drum, and I think that’s important in a main female character. She doesn’t just take what she’s given in life from her standing in society, but works for what she wants and fights for the underdog!

Overall, I did enjoy this book, but mainly for the characters within it. The murder aspect was fairly easy to figure out, and it seemed like it was wrapped up rather hastily, which I didn’t enjoy.

Thank you to Netgalley and Endeavour Media for this advanced copy. Dreamland by Nancy Bilyeau releases January 16, 2020.

3🌿

I received this book from Netgalley for review and all thoughts and opinions are my own .
Set on the New Jersey shore at the turn of the century, this thriller is a rollercoaster ride from the start. Peggy and Lydia, aristocratic sisters, are visiting the shore at the behest of Lydia's fiance, Henry. Summer is hot and the timing perfect for upcoming nuptials. Amid the waves and cries of children playing in the water, screams of another kind penetrate the very core of the upper class society and threaten to overwhelm the lower class workers in Dreamland. This is the thing of nightmares. Who is killing the young women of Dreamland? When Peggy steps outside her position she is in for a shock. The world is much more dangerous and exciting, especially for a naive privileged young woman.
This thriller is the talk of Instagram and I found it to be one wonderful tale of history and fiction. Well done! Great characters! Fast moving plot!

Overall, this book was an enjoyable read but I didn't love it. I knew who it was from the get go. One minute Peggy was smart and her own woman. The next she didn't know what an alibi was? While I have no doubt that the insanely rich lived the way they do, in this book it got really aggravating to read and didn't add to the story. I think I could have went with four stars if I hadn't pegged the murderer so quickly.

Captivating. Beautifully written love story under the gruesome murders of three women. No connection with the first murder but the second gets you thinking starts your mind wondering which one did it? The connection is there but who? As the story develops more conclusions can be made but still under a veil of mystery as to who really did commit the crimes the why starts to become apparent “Peggy” but reasons still unclear. I enjoyed every moment engrossed in this book

DREAMLAND marks a departure for Nancy Bilyeau from her previous bestselling historical thrillers. Instead of centering on England's Tudor and Georgian periods, DREAMLAND is set in America's tawdry playground of Coney Island during the height of the Gilded Age, and draws inspiration from the scandalous life of Peggy Guggenheim. DREAMLAND's plot also takes place over a more tightly compressed time period, which really ups the tension—it's a real pageturner. I frankly think this is Bilyeau's best novel to date, and am looking forward to appearing in conversation with her at DREAMLAND'S launch later this month in Astoria. Highly recommended!

3.25-I love the cover of this book and it’s what initially drew me in. This story follows Peggy Battenberg, who comes from a wealthy family although Peggy herself likes some of the simple things in life like working in a bookstore and she is drawn into a place called Coney Island while staying at a nearby fancy establishment called the Oriental Hotel. In Coney Island she falls instantly for a worker there and thereafter trouble ensues when women are found dead and Peggy must find out who has committed these crimes and what connections are there to her? Although this book kept me interested in reading, it was fairly predictable and I don’t tend to like insta-love in the stories I read.

Peggy Batternberg is a member of an extremely wealthy, New York-elite family - and the rest of her family wishes she would act like it. Forced to abandon her beloved job at Moonrise Bookstore to spend the summer with the rest of her family, along with her sister's fiance and his mother at the luxurious Oriental Hotel near Coney Island, Peggy readies herself for a long, dull summer maintaining boring and antiquated appearances that are expected of a young lady of her class.

However, she finds much more freedom - and danger - than expected even under her family's watchful eye when she visits Coney Island and meets Stefan, an artist of whom her family would certainly disapprove. But things take a rather sinister turn when women's bodies begin turning up near Dreamland. Peggy and Stefan may have witnessed something - and may also be suspects.

I loved the writing and Peggy's modern dreams in a time where women were very limited on what they could do, or even think (at least out loud.) The pacing felt a little slow at times but overall I still thought this suited the mystery of things.

Exquisite, enthralling,, evocative..
Beautifully written with a slightly aloof air. An insight into a privileged lifestyle that now is unimaginable.
Heiress to a fortune, Peggy rebels against her lifestyle but is bought back into the fold by threats. She holidays with her extended, complicated family and tastes love and temporary freedom at Coney island. A series of gruesome murders and revelations bring her resourcefulness to the surface.
Made me want to know more about this period of time and particularly Coney island.

Young Peggy Battenberg is trapped by her status. Reluctant heiress Peggy prefers to work in Moonrise bookshop than adhere to the restrictive etiquette of her position. The reader is quickly drawn to Peggy and is thrilled along with Peggy to discover that the mandated holiday she is all but abducted to go on, is in fact, an opportunity for Liberty. Coney Island Dreamland beckons.
The author describes the sights, sounds and smells of the two contrasting worlds of the Oriental Hotel and Coney Island. Peggy is torn between these worlds and this comes to a head when a murder or two has been discovered.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it for lovers of a gatbyesque era.

Okay, so what a great way to end the year, with Nancy Bilyeau's Dreamland. To be perfectly honest, I was not expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did-- I guess because of the cover, I was expecting it to be like Water For Elephants, which I thought was soooooo slowwwww, or the Night Circus, which I also thought was boring, but Dreamland actually had nothing to do with the circus, nor does it contain any element of fantasy. As I dove into the book, I felt some vibes like Liz Gilbert's City of Girls, which I did like, but found to be a bit drawn out, lacking in plot, and gratuitous in its painting of the historical details. Here, none of those are the case. Bilyeau gives us a similar heroine, who is unlike her contemporaries in her feminine independence, and creates an authentic, period setting without spending an excessive amount of time describing it-- she's confident that the details she gives are enough, and they are indeed. We never get lost in the minutia.
Dreamland follows a rebellious young woman from a wealthy family in NYC as they take up residence in a hotel on Coney Island. Murder, intrigue, forbidden romance, this book has it all, serving it up with elevated language that makes it one of those rare gems that can straddle the literary/contemporary line. It's fast-paced and plot driven enough to be a vacation read, but also intelligent, atmospheric, and historical enough to appeal to those who appreciate literary fiction. I think any reader of the previously named books would enjoy this book, as well as fans of mystery fiction and historical fiction.

Subtly charming, well paced, by turns slightly creepy and endearing. I'm not always wild about historical fiction, but think that may be because it so often isn't done as well as this

Set in 1911, this novel follows Peggy Batternberg, a mining heiress, as she deals with family secrets in Brooklyn, near Coney Island. Peggy has no interest in her life as an heiress, preferring books and art to jewels and propriety. Peggy’s summer starts off roughly, with a murdered young woman being pulled out of the water. After a visit to Dreamland, a park in Coney Island, she begins a whirlwind romance with Stefan, a Serbian artist, their happiness is quickly marred by her station. When another young woman is found murdered, Peggy and Stefan try to help the police, but Stefan is taken away as a suspect, but is released. He is arrested when another young woman is found murdered at Dreamland. Peggy then works to uncover the real murderer, who turns out to be someone very close to home.
This book was a whirlwind. I had expected a sedate coming-of-age love story, but, as always with Nancy Bilyeau, I got a crazy mystery that kept me guessing. The historical detail brought Coney Island to life. Peggy is a sympathetic protagonist who only wants to be happy. I just loved this book. It was beautifully written, the characters were well-fleshed out, and backstory was artfully inserted where it helped to move the story, versus bogging it down with unnecessary information.

Thank you NetGalley and Endeavour Media for this digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Description
The year is 1911 when twenty-year-old heiress Peggy Batternberg is invited to spend the summer in America’s Playground.

But the invitation to Coney Island is unwelcome. Despite hailing from one of America’s richest families, Peggy would much rather spend the summer working at the Moonrise Bookstore than keeping up appearances with New York City socialites and her snobbish, controlling family.

But soon it transpires that the hedonism of Coney Island affords Peggy the freedom she has been yearning for, and it’s not long before she finds herself in love with a troubled pier-side artist of humble means, whom the Batternberg patriarchs would surely disapprove of.

Disapprove they may, but hidden behind their pomposity lurks a web of deceit, betrayal and deadly secrets. And as bodies begin to mount up amidst the sweltering clamour of Coney Island, it seems the powerful Batternbergs can get away with anything… even murder.

I enjoyed the first part of the book, but found myself lacking the spirit to continue onward.

**Disclaimer: I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.**

I really, really enjoyed the first half of "Dreamland" by Nancy Bilyeau, but past 60% the story plateaus.

PROS
+ I judged the book by its cover - in that I really liked how beautiful the cover is!
+ Most of the characters are well-developed and interesting - Ben and Peggy's relationship is problematic, but I liked learning about that more than I cared about who murdered the women near Coney Island.
+ Bilyeau is great at writing descriptions - the way the hotel is set up; the sweltering heat during the heat wave; the decadent food and desserts; and the fancy clothing.

CONS
- Insta-love - WHY??? It's literally like Stefan says "hi" to Peggy and she's completely enamored.
- The ending - you almost don't care once you get to the end, so it seems somewhat pointless.

I was really pleasantly surprised by this book! I expected a rich people family-drama to read for escapism, but I got so much more than that. The family drama was sure there, but there also were plotlines of murder mystery, romance and social issues being put forward. All of them take up about the equal amount of page time and I think the division of different aspects the reader could focus on was done well and the showcasing of social problems was handled nicely.
My favourite part was the main character and her personality. She was self-confident, independent and strong, which is refreshing for a female character depiction. I loved seeing her and her sister's bond growing and their relationship becoming stronger, I was also extremely happy about the MC's sister's character growth.
What it more, I actually really enjoyed the romance. I liked the characters together, they were adorable and I totally shipped them, which is unusual because I usually am not a fan of romance for the reason that it tends to be written problematic and overtakes the story, but this wasn't the case in this book.
Even though the mystery reveal at the end was quite expected, that didn't bother me at all, I found it fitting and the ending I thought was overall beautiful. So I don't really have any complaints for this book other than that it's being published mid-January. Why? It's such a perfect summer read. But obviously this does not make me enjoy the book any less.

“Everything is real on Coney Island- and nothing is real”

summary
Peggy Battenberg is the black sheep daughter of one of the wealthiest and most affluent families in the early 20th century America. However, she is not your typical heiress. She is a ’New Woman’, working in a bookshop and trying her best to distance herself from her family. However, when she is told she must accompany them to New York, she cannot refuse to her chagrin. They stay in an opulent hotel next to the famous theme park ‘Dreamland’

Peggy is told not to mix herself with the common folk of Coney Island, but never one to conform to her family’s expectations, she sneaks into the darkness to Dreamland.
While on her adventures around the theme park, she meets a Serbian artist named Stefan. Their secret romance ignites under the veil of night on a beach, however everything gets entangled when bodies of young girl’s bodies start to appear, ensnaring Peggy into a web of murder, corruption and mystery.

likes
Set with the backdrop of the glamorous yet corrupt 1911 New York, the atmosphere is where Nancy Bileyeau excels. The descriptions of the hotel, the beach, the sweltering heat allowed a clear image of a this place that I have never been to. The descriptions of the aristocratic, extravagant yet reputation obsessed Battenberg family was sone so well I felt as if I were one of the wealthy, both the most free and the most trapped as Peggy discovers. When in Dreamland, I could taste the hot dogs, see the fireworks, smell the popcorn and hear the raucous crowds.
This is at its core, a mystery book and the unsettling nature of it added suspense and a tinge of darkness to the story.

Peggy’s world she once thought gilded was corrupting from the inside out.

This book explores privilege, and how it can be difficult to recognise when it is not yourself affected. Peggy had thought herself a ’new woman’, working and living a largely ordinary life, however her family name gets her many advantages she was unaware of, being sheltered from the ‘less desirable folk’ her whole life. Meeting Stefan and others around Dreamland allows her prejudices and assumptions to be slowly fracture. She learns of the disparity between classes, and realises that while she is still disadvantaged from being a woman in that time- she is one of the lucky ones.

Bigotry and racism toward immigrants is a particular focus of this novel. Peggy is disgusted at how they are instantly blamed, used as scapegoats. Generalised as ‘Anarchists’, the residents of Coney Island turn their noses up at anyone not born in their country. Unfortunately, while set more than a hundred years ago, the issue is still at the forefront political discourse, not only in the US, but the entire world.

The characters were for the most part very well developed. At the beginning, I struggled to grasp how their large family was connected, however I soon got the gist of it.
Lydia was my favourite! I think I would have preferred to read from her perspective as she was such an interesting and complex character, with the most growth.
Closely followed by Ben. I’m not sure what drew me to him, because he is immoral and mean and manipulative, but that just made his character more intriguing to me.

dislikes

Why does every good story just need to be ruined with Insta-love? Whyyyyy?
That may be a bit dramatic, but so was this romance. Saying I love you after meeting for like the second time? No thanks.

That being said, my thoughts on the romance may be tinged by me thinking the love interest was like 60 for about 50 pages. I’m not sure how that happened, but it was a REAL shock when they kissed. Even once I figured out he was NOT an elderly man, my brain still pictured him as a grandpa every time he was on the page. That sort of killed the romance for me.

I shipped Peggy with someone else, even though I absolutely HATE myself for it. If you’ve read this you probably know and if not… just know I hate my brain and I need to stop reading messed up new adult romances.

The Ending
I’m not going to give anything away, but I didn’t like the ending. I had a bunch of theories and all of them would been more shocking and intense than the one we were given (that isn’t even a brag, my theories are always super convoluted- but that just shows how bad this ending was)
It was not only VERY rushed, but didn’t really make that much sense. When they told us the murderer I thought it must have been a red herring, because it was so obvious that it was surprising. I don’t understand this character’s motivations for what they did. It was almost suggested they had some form of mental illness, which I did not appreciate.

overview
Well written and atmospheric, Dreamland was an interesting look at life in turn of the century New York, without glamourising it completely. Don’t go into this for the romance or murder mystery because you will probably be disappointed. This novel’s true strength lies in its descriptions and characters. I would recommend this loosely for fans of the Night Circus (take that with a whole jar of salt because I have never read it, but for some reason it gives me those vibes. I could be very off though) While slow paced at times, this book felt very realistic and as if I was in the midst of this world.

Genre: Historical Fiction Murder Thriller
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Pub. Date: January 16, 2020

Mini-Review

I had some disappointment with this novel. I thought it would be a shoo-in for me since I was reading about my childhood backyard. The novel is set in 1911 in Coney Island, Brooklyn NY. Back then, the amusement park truly earned its nickname of “America’s Playground.” For more than 100 years Coney Island has been synonymous with summer. I am a summer person. I couldn’t wait to dive into the story. The author does a good job of capturing the park’s energy and the feel of the times. There is also a decent murder mystery. My issue is with how the protagonistic—a 20-year-old who is from one of the wealthiest families in America—is not a believable character. She flip-flops from wanting to be a suffragette to acting like a prim and proper young woman from old money. Even though I was disappointed, overall I enjoyed the tale.




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Superb! An immensely compelling period drama, set in the early 20th Century. The story of a wiser than her years and thoroughly modern socialite balancing family & wanting to live for herself, not them. Peggy is an excellent protagonist - it's a real joy to follow her on her journey. Part drama, part criminal investigation and part social-historical critique - Dreamland makes for a really pleasurable and page-turner of a read.