Thank you to Rockstar Tours for letting me host a stop on this tour!!

Pub. Date: March 20, 2018

Publisher: Owl Hollow Press

Formats: Paperback, eBook

Pages: 368

Find it: Amazon, B&N, Goodreads

Synopsis

Anna is a student surviving the city, and she lives by a simple credo, “Never play their game; their game is always rigged.” For every man she has ever known, it’s a saying that has served her well.

That all changes on the night of “The Big Storm,” when Anna is slipped a date rape drug. Though she saves herself and her best friend, Anna is lost to the dark heart of the city and finds herself hunted by The Night Collectors. Unsure if these monsters are real or hallucinations, Anna nonetheless fights them as best she can. The battle attracts a stranger—Teej—who saves her using powers she cannot understand. He explains that she is an Undreamer and possesses the same powers, and in the future, he will not be the one to save her. She will save him.

But Anna is not yet ready to join Teej and stand against The Dreamers. She has difficult decisions of her own to make. Decisions she has always run from. She still has her partner’s suicide letter. It remains unopened. She still wears his ring, though she can’t seem to remember his face.

Anna learns of The Dreamers – artists so preeminent in their respective fields that they can paint, dance, sew or sing new realities – and as she travels through their creations, she learns that there’s as much beauty in the world as there is horror. With a complex conspiracy at work within the community of Dreamers that threatens to undermine reality itself, Anna will have to look deep within herself, and eventually have to face the horrors of her own past, to save her old world as well as her new one.

Anna Undreaming is a dark urban fantasy, and the first book in the The Metiks Fade trilogy.

Excerpt

Her old world was gone. The trees and the parked cars and the houses and the street. Gone. In their place a green sky stretched over those familiar, endless purple sands. Surreal light shone into Anna’s kitchen—light from a different sun in a different sky. She was in his world now.

And he was there.

Hunched on a purple dune loomed a large, wretched creature with black, empty pits where his eyes should have been. His dark outline stood out on the bright landscape, and a body was at his feet. A girl with long hair that covered her face. Her blood was smeared around his mouth, on his hands, around his feet and all over the body. Splashed on the sand like it had been poured from a bucket. So much blood.

Standing scarecrow still with a dimwitted smile on his clown face, his mouth curled at the corners into a rictus grin. Long, blackened teeth contrasted with his bone-white flesh. His head tilted loosely to one side and his eyes tracked her as she moved. The wind blew through him while the swirling sands swept past but didn’t touch him.

She heard a voice from the living room. It was muffled, but it sounded like a hundred children speaking all at once, all saying the same thing:

“I smell the fear,

Your hope is gone,

No friends left,

You are but one.”

His voice reverberated like a chorus of nightmares. She looked back into the living room and noticed it echoed through the phone that hung off the hook. It had answered itself, and now Mott spoke through it to her. She turned back to the window, and he was gone. The girl and the blood remained.

Get close to him. Pretend to be afraid. Never play their game.

My Thoughts

Wow. The beginning of this book literally had me putting it down because it creeped me out and I had to sleep! (And I’m the horror Queen!) The “Night Collectors” had me chilled and creeped for sure! I loved the concept of this book and a world where there are pockets of space that we don’t know about and could never see without being “Behind the veil”! This was definitely a well written YA fantasy with wonderful world building.

My one complaint would be too much explanation about some things (the Metiks, Doxa, different types of hazes, etc.) and too little explanation about other things… why is this all happening to begin with?

But, even though some of the story seemed a little disjointed in coming together it was still an amazing story! Read it so I can have a conversation about it!!

About Thomas:

Hi there! My name is Thomas Welsh and my first novel ANNA UNDREAMING is a dark urban fantasy story that was released in March 2018. It is the first entry in the METIKS FADE trilogy. You can buy it here.

I am 37 years old and live in Scotland, and I started writing fiction early last year. I was the winner of the Elbow Room fiction prize for my short story “And Then I was Floating” and I’ve also been published in a few other short story collections, including 404 Ink and Leicester Writes. I received an honourable mention in Glimmer Train’s Very Short Fiction award and my story Suicide Vending Machine will soon be featured on the Pseudopod Podcast.

I have been published in You Died – a book about Dark Souls – and I also write about games, music and film. You can find my work on Kotaku, Unwinnable Magazine and GlitchFreeGame. For my games writing, I was inducted into the fellowship of BAFTA.

I love Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Roger Zelazny and dark fantasy stories where women save themselves!

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Amazon Author Page | Goodreads

Giveaway Details:

1 winners will receive a finished copy of ANNA UNDREAMING, US Only.

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Rafflecopter Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/e2389ba2726/?

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

4/16/2018- BookHounds YA– Interview

4/17/2018- Mama Reads Blog– Review

4/18/2018- Books A-Brewin’– Excerpt

4/19/2018- The BookWorm Drinketh– Review

4/20/2018- Book-Keeping– Review

Week Two:

4/23/2018- A Backwards Story– Review

4/24/2018- Paulette’s Papers– Excerpt

4/25/2018- Sweet Southern Home– Review

4/26/2018- Book Lady’s Reviews– Review

4/27/2018- Adventures Thru Wonderland– Review

Anna Undreaming is Best Served with a

Purple Haze

Ingredients

• 1 part Raspberry Liqueur (I used Raspberry Sour Puss but you can use Chambord or something else as well)
• 1 part Black Sambuca

Directions

1. Put in shot glass
2. CHEERS!!

THIS ONE ISN’T COMPLICATED… BUT, BE CAREFUL. TOO MANY, AND YOU MAY FIND YOURSELF “BEHIND THE VEIL”…..