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The Dream Hunter

Sherrilyn Kenyon

Published 2007          340 pages

Synopsis

In the world of dreams there are the Oneroi, god-like beings who fight to protect the sleeping humans in their care, and the Skoti, beings that were once Oneroi but are now rogue and feed off the dreamers that they once protected.

The Skoti are cursed to feel no emotions, which is why they feed off the emotions of human dreamers.  Living vicariously on these emotions is highly addictive and if a Skoti feeds on one dreamer too much they can drive them insane or even kill them.  This is why the Oneroi are charged with protecting the dreamers and policing the Skoti.

Arik is a Skoti.  When he stumbles across Megeara’s dreams, the vivid emotions and sensations he feels manage to finally fill the vast emptiness that he has lived in for thousands of years.  Unable to let go of Megeara, he makes a pact with the god Hades: in exchange for two weeks as a mortal man he will return with one human soul for Hades.  It is only after Arik thoughtlessly accepts this bargain that he finds the price of his mortality is Megeara’s soul.

Dr Megeara Kafieri has spent her life trying to prove that Atlantis is not just a myth and that it existed in ancient times.  She is on a diving mission when she rescues a man from the sea.  He seems strangely familiar - his face is one that she has seen before in her dreams….

Arik finds that life as a mortal man is confusing and that the dream world is very different to the real world.  Wooing Megeara is hard work but it doesn’t take long for Arik to regret the bargain that he made with Hades.  When the time comes to pay Hades, how can he sacrifice the soul of the woman that he’s come to love above all others?

The Review

I feel compelled to point out at the start of this review that there aren’t actually any vampires in this story!  (Although dream beings who feed off emotions are almost like psychic vampires.)  Established fans of the Dark Hunter series will be used to the world / underworld domination plots of the Daimons (vampires) that run through just about every book in this series but the Daimons are conspicuous by there absence here.  Still, I’m getting ahead of myself….

The Dream Hunter is about the tenth or eleventh book (depends where you start counting from) in Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter series.  It is a stand alone story and you don’t have to read all the other books in the series before this one but I think that if you are new to Sherrilyn’s Dark Hunter world you might enjoy reading The Dream Hunter more if you had read some of her other books first and gained a basic understanding of the Greek mythology setting of these books. 

The Dream Hunter is actually an off-shoot from the main Dark Hunter series, hence that lack of Daimons and Dark Hunters.  As this book is the first set in the world of the dream gods, there is a lot of new mythology and characters to catch up on, which makes the start of the book a little confusing in places.  Don’t let that put you off reading it though, because the pay-off is everything that readers have come to expect from this author.

The story is fast paced and exciting, with plenty of action from gods, demi-gods, demons and other creatures of myth.  The romance hits all the right notes, Megeara is a most likeable character and Arik is oddly endearing, even though at the start of the book he appears thoughtless and selfish.

The Dream Hunter is bound to be a hit with anyone who already likes Sherrilyn Kenyon’s brand of paranormal romance.  If you haven’t read any of Sherrilyn’s novels yet and are a fan of fantasy romance, try the Dark Hunter series – you won’t be disappointed.

I thought this book was a most enjoyable read even though it technically didn’t have any vampires in it!

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