HOLY HANKERCHIEF!

This was so good!
A little bit confusing here and there, but so good anyway! I mean we get the world building and seeing our heroine have some balls. it dosen`t jump right into it. But we get to know her and watch her somewhat grow as well as the fantasy part of it.

I look forward to see how it plays out in the second book!

This could have been a great book if it had been more well rounded and fleshed out. It felt rushed and it didn’t give me time to Connect with the world and characters. Ruch a pity because it had a great premise.

I love Fae stories and this was an interesting take on the lore, but it felt short and rushed. I would have liked more fleshing out of the plot and concepts.

After her mother tries to attempt suicide, Sylvie and her brother move in with their father in the upper east side. This is a completely different world for Sylvie but little does she know, there is a completely different realm and battle she is about to be pulled into.

In Restless Dreams is a story about a human girl with special abilities being thrown into the middle of the battle between the Seelie and Unseelie courts.

The story itself has a good flow and build up to the world's. It just didn't pull me in as deeply as I had hoped. It wasn't a hard to put down novel, but it was entertaining. It's a good pick if you like fae stories and want something not super intense. The main character was pretty enjoyable which can be a hit or miss when it comes to fantasy heroines.
This novel does not have a cliff-hanger ending but it is the start of a series.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and to the publisher for providing me with this e-Arc. I am very grateful! Will definitely read more from this author in the near future.

You can find this review and all of my others over at www.readbookrepeat.wordpress.com

Actual rating of 2.75

Sylvia is having a terrible night, she never thought that her new boyfriend would dump her at a huge party, just so he could go and grind on another girl. What Sylvia doesn't realise is, this will be the LEAST of her problems. After her mother's attempted suicide, Sylvia and her brother end up moving to New York to live with their Father, while their Mother enters a facility to help her recover. Being in a massive city, living in a huge mansion, and having more allowance than any teenager could know what to do with sounds brilliant. Except what comes with that is having to try and fit in and make more friends than enemies at a prestigious prep school all the while realising that she is the Phantasma and the Unseelie and Seelie courts want nothing more than to get their hands on her. Not knowing which court to believe, Sylvia tries to be pragmatic about it, ending up in more trouble than she bargained for. Will she be able to survive her new found Phantasma status and her new high school all at the same time?

This book is a tough one. I feel kinda torn about it. The premise was incredibly interesting and I was looking forward to diving into this world and seeing how it all played out. And I'm not too sure what to think about what I've read...

The first half of the story follows Sylvia as she comes home from a party and finds her Mother passed out on the kitchen floor, seemingly having attempted to overdose on medication. It moves on to the introduction of Sylvia's father and then their move to New York so that her mum can enter a facility that will help her recover from her attempted suicide. The first half of this story had serious bully academy vibes going for it. It's a prep school for the rich and fabulous that Sylvia is enrolled into. While her and her brother's lives were normal when they lived with their mum, it changes to anything BUT normal when they move in with their dad. He's wealthy and lives in a mansion and they both now get an exuberant allowance a week and are told to buy mobile phones and take the private car or taxis everywhere. The people at Sylvia's school are the epitome of born with a silver spoon in their mouth. and on her first day, Sylvia upsets one of the stereotypical Queens Bee's and then spends the rest of her time trying not to piss anyone else. Of course the hot and popular mean guy takes an interest in her because that's just what happens yeah? All I'm saying is, it came of no surprise when I read it. So the first half of the book comes across super contemporary with some chapters thrown in that are written from a stranger's perspective from the shadows, and we are given glimpses of warring courts and the mention of dreamers and Phantasmas. Then all of a sudden, a party happens and there's spiking happening and our protagonist can see the fae. This is where the book takes a turn for the more fantastical. We meet two main characters, one from each court, who end up pleading their cases and attempting to get Sylvia on their side. Then she ends up in Faerie and all this stuff happens, and I'm not going to go into it because you didn't come here to read a recitation of the book. After that ramble, let me get back on track. What I'm trying to get at here is, this book felt like two books that were half written and mashed together into a franken-book that I'm just not too sure how I felt about?

Both halves had awesome ideas and the beginnings of some great stuff. I just feel like the book felt very divided, one minute I'm reading a YA bully book and the next I'm reading a fantasy story about the Fae courts. It just didn't combine too well. I don't quite understand the whole point of the first half of the book to be honest. All these scenarios and characters didn't really have much of a point to them, it's as though the author wasn't too sure how to start the story so just went with a basic idea. Even the attempted suicide felt like it was just used to create word count, it didn't have a purpose and after half way through, we don't even know what happened to her mum. I'm not sure if there is meant to be a follow up book to this, but I definitely feel like there should be because I feel like none of my questions were answered by the end. What was the point of emphasising the struggles that Sylvia was having? Yes, there is mention at one point about a character not wanting to stay somewhere and I guess that could be used a driving point, but it just felt very superficial. The whole thing felt very superficial if I'm honest.

There were so many great ideas here and I just feel like the book was rushed WAY too much. This could have been fleshed out to a duology at least. We barely got any lore about the courts and their war, there just wasn't a whole lot of substance here and it made me really sad because the general idea of this story is great.

I also really enjoyed the characters we met too, it felt like there was so much more room needed for all of these characters to reach their full potential and be fleshed out into three dimensional characters that it makes me sad at how the story didn't really touch on things enough. One thing I absolutely LOVED and made me all giddy inside was that one character is singing at one point in the book, and the song he is singing is by a singer called LP and it's called Lost On You; it made me super excited because LP is still a relatively unknown musician, at least here in Australia, as far as I know, so to see her lyrics in a book just made me really happy, because she seriously is underrated and if you haven't heard her you should definitely check her out, the woman has range, let me tell you.

So while the story was okay and I did enjoy it for the most part, I feel like it let itself down by not being allowed to be fleshed out more and given the time and length it deserved. I did enjoy both halves of this story, I just don't know if they worked too well mushed together how they were without a longer page count...or an extra book, to help give the story a bit more substance and some closure for the stuff the happened, because there's basically no closure at all. If there does happen to be a follow up book to this in the future, you best believe I will be checking it out, because I can't handle unanswered questions.

So I loved this book. I got some ACOTAR and Whims of the Fae vibes. If you like faerie books with a love triangle this is the book for you.

In Restless Dreams, the first book in the The Phantasmer Cycle by Wren Handman was an interesting book and while I did finish it I didn't really enjoy it.

This book didn't have realistic interactions or characterizations and I found it really hard to relate to characters. That made it even harder to enjoy the decent parts of the plot.

I don't really have too much to say about this one, but it would be unfair not to share my thoughts.

It was a solid 3 star read, wavering at points a bit above or below that final rating.

I did really enjoy the plot of this novel, though I wasn't as hooked as I could have been in the beginning. I did enjoy the worldbuilding details, since it helped to clarify a lot of the confusions I had earlier on in the book. In addition, I also really liked the magic system, since it was really original and not something that I was really expecting. I really wanted to know more about it and understand it a bit better, but I savored every bit that was provided.

I also really enjoyed Sylvia's character arc, since she was a really strong character, but she did have some annoying traits that bothered me. I feel that the next book is headed towards a love triangle, which really isn't my favorite trope, but I'm not going to outright condemn it.

I also wish I got to know more about the Seelie court, though I know this book only really focuses in on the Unseelie. I hope to see more of this in the next book.

The first half of the book dragged a lot to me and felt really unnecessary to the plot of the second half of the book. It was totally overshadowed and forgettable and is mainly the reason why I gave this book a three star, rather than something higher.

I will probably read the next book and I did find this book really fun at points and can't wait to learn more about this world!

Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read and review this title. I will review this title at a different date.

This is a nice YA paranormal/fantasy story. It starts with the schematic events - a normal girl, some events (mom suicide attempt) make her ad her brother live with her father (a VERY wealthy man) - and now she has to find herself in this completely new to her environment.
Sylvia tries her best to love and want to just survive in her new school, not to stand out, not to make enemies, but being a new girl in such a wealthy school after living in a small town - will never be easy.
This girl is a new Phantasmer and she knows nothing about it. And for now, that's all we know about it, oh, and that two fae Courts fight over her. Nothing really happened here that would reveal anything deeper than just foggy ideas.
I saw here potential and I hope that in the next book the paranormal/fantasy part will be more developed.

In Restless Dreams is a good book but it felt like it couldn't decide if it wanted to be contemporary or contemporary fantasy. The writing is good. and Ms. Handman handles the opening scenes very well. The characters were realistic and handled the issues in this novel. I just felt like this book could have been better if it would have focused on either the fantasy or the contemporary. The two together made it a little too stitched together. 3.75 Review so a 4 star book

Thank you to Parliament House Press for sending me an e-ARC copy of this novel through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Spoilers present from this point forward.

There is a lot to like about In Restless Dreams, so I’m going to share my positive impressions first, before I dive into the aspects of this novel that I did not like. The basic premise is one that is very attractive to me. Girl finds her way to Fairyland, discovers she is the chosen one and has the chance to help make the world better. I love these kinds of stories and rarely get sick of them. They are familiar, comforting, and fun. In that regard, In Restless Dreams is a novel I enjoy. It’s full of tropes, executed in non-surprising ways, but I’m okay with that because sometimes I just want to read something safe, familiar and predictable.

There’s a bit of a love triangle, and lord knows I love that kind of drama, but it’s a real side note, so if that’s not you’re thing, don’t worry that it will be front and centre to the story. I found both love interests to be intriguing, and wish a little more of the story was devoted to them, and their interactions, both with each other and with Sylvia. Sylvia is the Phantasmer, which is just this novel’s way of saying that she is the chosen one, and I’m a big fan of chosen one story arcs. If you aren’t a fan of this trope, this might not be the novel for you.

Now onto my issues with the novel. It takes way too long to introduce fantasy elements to Sylvia’s story. Her very first brush with the Fairy world doesn’t happen until 40% of the way through the novel. For a novel with a shorter page count (316 pages isn’t long for a fantasy novel), this takes way too long to get going.

As much as I normally really enjoy school drama novels- especially private or boarding school drama- in this book it’s not what I’m here for, and almost half the page count is dedicated to it. I’m not entirely sure what it really adds to the narrative- most of the school plot lines are dedicated to the bullying of Sylvia by a classmate named Cassidy, and that has no bearing on the Fairy plot line (aka the main plot line of the book). The only part of the school story that is relevant is when a classmate named Alex tricks Sylvia into eating a drugged brownie at a party, which kicks off her first real time seeing the fairy world. The rest of the school plot line isn’t necessary, and I’d rather it have either been worked into the main narrative better, or trimmed down significantly, in favour of beefing up the Fairy plot line.

The Fairy plot line itself is interesting, but again I really wish it had been explored further. It comes across as rushed, and a lot of it is bogged down in excessive descriptions, rather than showing us the Abstract World through dialogue and actions. The various locales and creatures dreamed up were interesting, but were ultimately just a pretty background, and not fully fledged out setting and characters.

Sylvia as a hero was most likable, but at times dipped into annoying, childish or just plain inconsistent. Her family was a mess, and really needed some more fleshing out. The school characters were largely irrelevant and two dimensional. I wanted more from the Queens of Fairy, but I did really enjoy the Stranger and the Knight, they felt like real breathing characters to me.

Overall, the dialogue was where this book was let down. There wasn’t enough of it, and what was there read awkward and a little staged. There’s a trick to writing teenagers so that they don’t sound like an adult trying to talk like a teen, and unfortunately this novel does not successfully accomplish that.

The main plot needed more depth and expansion, with more time dedicated to the world building and magic of the being a Phantasmer, but I’ve said that numerous times in this review. Bottom line is cut a lot off the beginning, flesh out the middle and the end, and this would easily become a 4 star+ read for me. As it stands, I have to give it a low 3 star review.

The Phantasmer Cycle Series, Book 1
3 stars
I was given a free e-copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Sylvia is living her best life with a normal, small-town existence, but in the blink of one night, everything changes. Now she finds herself trying to navigate life in the luxurious Upper East Side, trying to help with her hurting brother, connect to a stranger who is her father, understand a mother healing from a suicide attempt, and starting a new school with super-rich bullies. Sounds easy enough right? Wrong, because she suddenly learns about a connection to an alternate world full of fairies, and their fate is in her hands.
The pacing for this book was a little off for me, we spent the first half of the book not even exploring the fairy world or really working that into the plot. It felt like it was spending way too much time on Sylvia in the real world and at that point, I thought this was just going about be about Sylvia’s high school and boy drama while struggling to adjust to her new life. But in the last half of the book, the adventure finally started, we finally got to see Sylvia start the action, but it all ultimately felt rushed. By the end of the book, I had a lot of different questions, which I hope the next book will answer.
Sylvia was a great main character for me. While all the craziness was happening around her, she had this smart-aleck inner dialogue and quips that would make me giggle. You could tell that she was raised tough, and she wasn’t one to back down from a fight, literally. Like when she was about to make a bad decision, she would tell herself how bad of a decision it was, but acknowledge that she was gonna do it anyway, despite the coming consequences. To me, it made her actions more valid, like the reader could really understand why these choices were being made, not just plot pushers. What I did not get was the romance. Between the two choices, I definitely sympathized with one more than the other, but I didn’t feel like there was nearly enough material to create the connection that Sylvia was feeling. It was very much an insta-love type thing, which can be very hit or miss with me. I think there were too many (to me) unanswered or ignored questions that seemed essential to them connecting that bothered me a bit. My one big peeve about Sylvia was her lack of curiosity for the beginning, I felt like she had a very lack-luster attitude to the information she was given, especially when she was having such an emotional reaction to everything else going on in her life.
I wanted so much more of the fairy world than I got. There could have been so much more about the differences between the Seelie and Unseelie courts, more background about how the different courts worked, all we really got was two limited points of view that argued for why Sylvia should change things. Like I feel like half the story is missing, I hope that the next books will include some awesome flashbacks or something to fill that void.
I also felt like there were a lot of different missed opportunities to address some big issues. Sylvia is dealing with a lot of different things in this book, bullying and the suicide attempt of a parent, but I felt like these elements were glossed over, used more for plot progress than character progress. I felt like they just kind of put a Band-Aid on these issues and didn’t really address them.
I am interested to see where Sylvia ends up next, the ending left just enough to pique my interest and lookout for the next book!

This reminded me so much about #ACOTAR and yet it gave a faint Mediator vibe.

Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for providing this book for an honest review.

The way this book starts, and old witch declaring that "she would come" and then promptly proceeds to break the bones off a real skeleton and makes a stew!! 😂

Stevie lives with her mom and brother in Topaz lake- definitely not a city! Her life is turned upside down when her mom attempts suicide. Her dad who also happens to be very very rich relocated them to New York and enrolls them in fancy school. Where Stevie has to deal with mean girls and a handsome boy whom she is reluctant to trust. The whole thrusting the character from modest beginnings to ultra rich life did feel like a cliche but I throughly enjoyed it!
Now out of nowhere she starts seeing things, at first she thinks that it was the aftereffects of some one drugging her. But she is visited by 2 handsome men. The Knight and the Stranger.

Is it bad to say I liked the Stranger right from the first even though I thought that he'd just be a mere supporting character? But you soon learn that he has a major role to play.... in her heart.
The Kinight is kinda like Captain America if he was a fairy.

After she learns that she is a Phantasmer, a human who can change the fabric of Fairy simply by believing in a new story. She takes the news surprisingly well.

I loved the relationship between Stevie and her brother Eric. It was adorable and relatable. The Dad was a pretty likable character too, you can see he is trying so hard to do right by his kids.

The most remarkable part of the book for me was how the situation of suicide and depression and its after effects on family and friends was handled. All the things that go through a family member's mind when faced with such tragedy, the confusion, guilt, anger, sadness. It was very well done.

I wish we knew a bit about the courts, the world building although good felt very short. I would love to know more about the fairies the types, the Different courts. It did feel a little bit incomplete. Some parts specially with the whole school situation felt a bit of a cliche. And yet I still don't know if I can trust anyone at the school. Even Fiona.

The cliffhanger and epilogue makes me eagerly wait for the sequel!!
Review also present on goodreads

I received a copy of this book for a fair and honest review. Where to begin with novel. Sylvia is just an normal girl trying to live her live with the issues and problem that teenager deal with. Her mother tries to commit suicide and this means that her father comes in and takes her and young brother to live in a mansion in New York. The she discovers that she is a Phantasmer and both sides of the Fairy is after her. She is pulled into a world of the supernatural. It is a lot of weight on her shoulders. I want to see what happens in next book.

"Relief is a memory you will forget."

'In Restless Dreams (The Phantasmer Cycle Book 1)' by Wren Handman is one of those seemingly innocuous titles that slowly shows itself as much, much more than it appears to be.

The pitch is this.. the main character, Sylvia, is a teenage girl whose mother's attempted suicide lands her in the big city. She and her brother end up there with their estranged dad, the rich prep school she's forced to attend, a complete departure from the life she knew.. and one she's struggling to navigate at best.

To make bad into worse, she's the most recent incarnation of something the neighboring fae world refers to as a Phantasmer, a human who can literally change everything simply by believing. Lucky girl, that places her right in the middle between the two warring Courts. The Seelie and Unseelie both have their own strategies for dealing with her ability, and the young men trying to sway her loyalties have intentions of their own.

"When you get older, plainer, saner, when you remember all the danger we came from." -- "Burning like embers, falling, tender, long before the days of no surrender. Years ago, and well you know..."

At the start of the book, it actually seems to center mostly around Sylvia's day to day situation in New York. Some of her classmates are typically awful, but she meets a couple of people who seem nice. As she trudges through her new situation, it's just kind of your average story.

So, when she first really crosses paths with one of the fae and the dialogue takes a sharp dip into this beautifully crafted sort of homage to all things Wonderland, I found myself straightening up in my chair and reassessing the writer entirely.

Certainly, some of the similarities are overt and deliberate, but I feel like there are glimpses of other worlds here too. Influences, even if subconscious, on the author.

"This new thing is made up of barbed wire and gunny sack, a scarecrow of madness. It twitters, something halfway between a laugh and the scream of ripping metal."

Initially, that snippet seemed most obviously some darker combination of Oz, but for me it felt like something I might see in Kingdom Hearts. In my mind, it was both frightening and ridiculous, but it still made me uneasy and I loved that.

There's this brilliant character whose intentions you're never quite certain of. Everything you're shown says one thing about him, yet my instincts continued down their own road. He's a creature of darkness wrapped in some strange joy, who loves to sort of linger in the gray.. toying with anyone who might be able to glimpse him. Ultimately, good or bad.. he's my favorite.. simply for the way he's able to wander along that line, swerving this way and that without much concern for the consequences. Besides, even wickedly so, he's delightfully playful.

I feel like the author really benefitted from her work in scripts. While oft times, this can throw a writer off, resulting in scenes that only play out well in a visual medium, Handman has a unique mastery of how best to utilize what she knows. She's able to create these moments (and if you read this, you'll see one during the night of the party.. there are soaps and hand creams involved, just remember that much), that are warm and funny, visualized so well that I can still replay the images in my memory.

"I don't know...Did you know your belt is made of sorrow?" I ask. -- He gives me an odd look. "You're still high, aren't you?"

Beneath the most obvious plotlines, the changing of the world and the battle between the two Courts, even the potential romantic angles.. what I really love is the origin story of their world and the history within it. The creation of the cycles these beings have been subjected to is uniquely inventive and held me fascinated. The connections they held to great artists, how they benefitted from the work they were putting out into the world, is incredibly unconventional in the best way.
​
Wren made me laugh out loud, leaving me to explain my strange outbursts to my family.. and made me cry, which thankfully no one was present for. It can't be proven. Never happened. *cough* Really though, the truth is, I was terribly sad and hopeful for all of the fae. Even those who didn't necessarily deserve it.

This rating was difficult for me. Though I enjoy reading about books during high school situations. I felt that this was pretty much the whole. I was expecting to read more about Fairyland. And the ending was so confusing to me. I didnt understand who was good and who was bad. Other than that it was an ok read more me.

In restless dreams was an interesting book. It took me awhile to get interested but about halfway through to really get interested and locked in. It is set in two different worlds, I loved the world building and the characters. I liked the paranormal aspect of it with all the interesting type creatures. I always love a bit of romance in a fantasy book. There is a love triangle in the book, which I don’t normally like, but it’s still an interesting storyline. I find the book to be relatable as well as dark hitting you with hard truths. The plot is what grabs you along with the characters you come to love. Four stars!