Dream a Little Dream, by Antoinette Stockenberg

Dream a Little Dream (excerpt), by Antoinette Stockenberg, was a nice read.

For centuries Fair Castle stood proudly on English soil... until an excentric millionaire bought and transported it, stone by stone, to America. Today the ancient stronghold is home to his heiress, lovely Elinor MacLeish and her family... and is also home to the ghosts that refuse to leave their ancestral dwelling.

William Braddock, Lord Norwood, was once an impoverished English peer. But having made his fortune, he has set his sights on America. Fair Castle was once his. And now he wants it back.

When the English nobleman meets the headstrong American heiress, the battle is joined. Someone -or something- wants the castle back, and will stop at nothing to get it. But who will lose Fair Castle, and who will lose their hearts?

Like Desire's Moon, this was a book I read years ago and didn't remember well, only had a feeling that I had liked it. As I read it this time, it it turns out my feelings were correct. It wasn't a wonderful surprise, as Desire's Moon was, but I'd give it a nice B-.

I'm afraid this was a pretty uneven book. The first part was ok, if a bit unremarkable. It drew me in, at least.

Then the whole middle of the book was really, really good and satisfying, with lots of great tension. Up until this point we hadn't seen Will's POV yet, and I believe this was a very important part of the story's improvement, because up until then he had been quite a jerk. Seeing his POV allowed us to understand his actions, and made him much more sympathetic. This part was also when Elinor and Will start to get together, and they have nice chemistry.

The ending, unfortunately, wasn't good at all. There was way too much running around, and accidents and dastardly plots coming to light, and it all became tedious.

I liked Will, but Elinor was a bit harder to warm up to. She's supposed to be mature and confident, but she does many childish things. I'm sure you'll recognize the type: she doesn't like the hero, so she feels compelled to do idiotic things in front of him, things that don't make sense and make her look like an idiot, just out of a sense of defiance. And these are not even things that will affect the hero and upset him. I mean, an example would be how at one point Will shows up and Elinor, upset, defiantly lights a cigarette (of course, she doesn't smoke). Why on Earth would someone with half a brain do this??

Luckily, she doesn't take too long to outgrow this tendency, and she improves a bit, especially once she realizes that, as she puts it, "wanting to buy a castle is not an act of evil". By the time she and Will start to get it on, I could at least tolerate her.

I found the plot enjoyable, except for the ghost element. I thought the space given to them was inadequate. This was an element which should either have been more important or not have been there at all. Also, I never really understood exactly what the hell had happened to the now-ghosts when they were alive, and their whole actions never made much sense. It was all strangely unfocused.

One of the best things about this book was the setting. The castle was rendered very vividly, and I loved the whole idea of living in a Medieval castle, even though I just know it wouldn't be as fairy tale-ish in real life as it is here.

In spite of my problems with it, Dream a Little Dream had enough fresh, enjoyable elements that I think I'll try another Stockenberg.