Guest Review and Author Interview: Wayne Hicks reviews Dream Student by J.J. DiBenedetto

Our Guest Reviewer:

Wayne Hicks is an Independent Author of five current novels, with more coming soon! You can find him and his books at http://ebookonfire.com.









Author Interview: J.J. DiBenedetto

Dream Student has a very interesting plot. It holds ideas of “dream walking” abilities, precognition parapsychology, and clairvoyance all mixed together! What provided you with the inspiration for this series?

The inspiration was the most basic idea – seeing into other people’s dreams.  What would that be like?  Very quickly, it hit me that this was a perfect setup for a story where the protagonist would have to solve a mystery without help from the authorities.  When Sara sees the horrible crimes committed in the killer’s dreams, she knows she’s the only witness, and she has no physical proof or even a photo or sketch she could give the police.  So she has to be the one to find and stop the killer. 

That was just too good an idea to pass up.

You seem to have a very good start with your Dream Series! How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing ever since high school.  The original first draft of what would become “Dream Student” was written in 1998, but I set it aside until last year.  I went back to that first draft, rewrote it from word one, changed the setting to 1989-90 (the same time I went to college – write what you know!), and here it is!

When did you decide that it was time to take your writing public?

Last fall, when a good friend sold her first novel to a publisher.  I decided, if she could do it, why not me?  I had another close friend help me out by critiquing the re-written book a chapter at a time, and I sent it out to several beta readers, and I also paid for an editorial critique.  When the feedback I got from all of them was that the book was ready to go – off it went, onto Kindle!

Is being an Author your first job? If not, please tell us what you do when you’re not typing or writing away.

By day, I work for a small company that does mail fundraising for nonprofit groups (please don’t call it junk mail!).  In my free time (what’s that?) I love to listen to and attend the opera, cheer for my New York Giants, and take orders from the tortoiseshell cat that rules our home.

Writers block is inevitable. Either a plot is not developing how you want or something about your character(s) feels missing. What’s something that you do to help find new inspiration?

What I usually do is to skip ahead and start on a later portion of the story.  There’s always some scene I’m looking forward to, and I just leave the part that’s blocking me behind and go to the more “fun” thing to write.  By the time that’s done, usually I’m ready to go back to what was giving me trouble.

What is your next writing project?

I’m working on the sixth book in this series (the first four are all available now, and the fifth book will be published this month).  I’m also writing another novel, which is more of a straightforward adventure story (think “Romancing the Stone” as a general tone) tentatively called “Queen of the Idiots”.

Now for one of my favorite requests -   tell us a fun fact about yourself.

I was a DJ in college at my school’s radio station (“WRUW…91.1 FM…Cleveland”).  Five to Seven AM, Friday mornings.  I think I had eight listeners, total!

Dream Student by J.J. DiBennedetto
Published March 17th, 2013
(Book 1 of 5 - the 6th is currently in the works!)

(Author): What would you do if you could see other people’s dreams? If you could watch their hidden fantasies and uncover their deepest, darkest secrets…without them ever knowing?

Sara Barnes is about to find out. She thought that all she had to worry about was final exams, Christmas shopping and deciding whether she likes the cute freshman in the next dorm who’s got a crush on her.

But when she starts seeing dreams that aren’t hers, she learns more than she ever wanted to know about her friends, her classmates…and a strange, terrifying man whose dreams could get Sara killed.

“Dream Student” is the thrilling first installment of the Dreams series.


Review:

What if you dream of someone you've never known, someone who loves you, and realize that the dream isn't really your own, but theirs? That you'd been somehow drawn into that person's mind, to see how they feel about you?

And what if you then meet that person in real life, and suddenly realize that you've discovered the one person in the world that you were truly destined to love with all your heart?

That's what happens to Sara. In a dream that she somehow knew wasn't her own, she saw a dark-haired young man, and when she met him only days later, it was love at first sight. She didn't know how she'd gotten into his dream, but she knew it was real, and that now he was real, and that she loved him.

And then she had another dream, with that same "this isn’t my dream" feeling. But in this one she was forced to watch helplessly as a young girl is murdered in a savagely brutal way, her body disposed of in a rural area.

And Sara knows that it wasn't the first time this man had killed a young girl. And that it won't be the last.

Dream Student follows Sara through her own waking nightmare, a nightmare of knowing that a killer is stalking young women, and being unable to do anything to stop him. With her boyfriend and roommate as the only ones she can confide in, she sets out to change that, to put a stop to these grisly murders... but how do you track someone you've only seen in a dream?

And she has to, because last night she dreamed about his next victim... and she's only got days to save the girl.

I found this book incredibly engaging, and literally had trouble putting it down so that I could work or sleep! The characters are so realistic, even to their doubts and fears and desires, that I feel as if I know them all, and I want to go and visit with them again.

The Author has created a simple world where people live and study and work, but where the unusual creeps in and takes some of them into directions most of us never have to face. Their reactions are believable and entirely human, and I could easily identify with each of them.

I would not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone who longs for a story that they can believe, no matter how impossible it seems. If you're looking for such a story, then I urge you... read Dream Student.

You'll never forget it.

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