Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

DNF at 25%. It's been over three years since I received this ARC. I gave it a go and have decided it is not for me. It interested me then and no longer does now.

I love the dark romance, almost horror vibe of this book. As an avid romance reader and a baby horror reader (mostly dark fantasy over true horror), this book hit all the right notes for me. I also love the thought of the Sandman as a real person (well, "real" being a bit subjective I guess!) I am a little in love with Sandman, and I'm not gonna lie, a little in love with Nora too!

Dream Keeper had such an interesting synopsis that I was dying (no pun intended) to read it. How interesting to be friends with the Sandman and how terrify to know something or someone is killing people in the dreams. But their friendship has an insidious reasoning. Nora holds the key to the Nightmare Lords freedom, and he is willing to play dirty to get what he wants. Highly recommend.

This book is vividly full of nightmares that will make your skin crawl. I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked this book up, but descriptions that made me truly shudder was not one of them. This book propels readers into a world of dreams, somewhat reminiscent of Freddy Krueger, and just as chilling. While I enjoyed the premise and world building, I struggled to find a true connection with the characters. I was rooting for them for sure, but never truly felt as though I got to know them, which made plot points plod on at times and also built confused feelings surrounding some character choices. However, these slow paced moments coupled well with moments of exciting action. Overall, this was a very well written, young adult adventure that I am sure the targeted demographic will love.

A solid YA novel that was a good purchase for my library. Students have read and enjoyed it, and I purchased it because of this review copy.

While it was technically well-written, I found it confusing and was unable to connect with the characters.

Offering a interesting take on a horror-fantasy trope, Dream Keeper tantalises the reader with a dark take on the Sandman. A deliberately woven novel, that intrigues and keeps anticipation wild, a strong entry for a new series.

Not gonna lie, the cover drew me in before the synopsis even caught my eye.. I liked the idea of a nighttime visitor who you are drawn to and start a relationship with, so the love between Nora and The Sandman was definitely something that had me drawn to the story, because I just had to see what would happen between them. Of course, this isn't just a happy romance story; there is another dream visitor that is far from Nora's friend and threatens her relationship with The Sandman.
When people started dying around Nora, I was 100% on board because I love dark things, so I was hooked! This book is definitely different, dark, and easy to get hooked on with a bit of romance to counterbalance the darkness. I really enjoyed this read and am looking forward to the next installment.

I couldn't wait to start reading this but was disappointed very, very early on.

Although this is a fast paced book, which was great, unfortunately, I was so confused about what was actually happening with the basics like the world building and the magical system - y'know, the bloody basics of the book.

The premise of this book is very different to any that I have read before and I found the book very interesting. I also didn't guess the ending, which is a plus. The story was really well written and I am looking forward to the next book, which I have no idea what's going to happen!

The Sandman is a mythical being that is the master of dreams. Using his sand, he puts people to sleep and rules the world of the night. In Dream Keeper, the sandman is real and in love with a young woman named Nora. Nora holds within her the power to effect the world of the night. She has the power to tip the balances between the Nightmare realm and the Dream realm, which makes her and her loved ones a massive target for The Weaver: the master of the Nightmare realm. She has this because of the Sandman, and he is relying on her not to cave and give in to the Nightmares, because if she does, all will be lost, in the Night world and in the normal human world.
Twisted and waaaaay darker then I was expecting, this book has a hard focus on nightmares and horror movie level monsters and has almost no normal dreams or happy things (which is what I was expecting). Yah, this book is shockingly graphic and scary. It has grewsome self mutilation, multiple self murders through mind control, and a disturbing scene of self murder by pen violently being stabbed through the throat. Which leads me to my biggest complaint. Absolutely horrifying things happen in the real world to the main character (a normal teenage girl) and we are expected to believe she can just handle it and not have a massive mental breakdown. Its so unreasonable I was taken right out of the story. I don't know about you, but if a woman throat stabbed herself in front of me and my best friends killed themselves by ripping out there own eyes right next to me I WOULD LOSE MY CRAP! I'm talking about mental breakdown after mental breakdown, PTSD to the nines, becoming unable to see anything but the horror. Nora just takes it, brushes it off and keeps going. All of those events happen in the real world, those characters are ACTUALLY DEAD, and Nora is worried about if Sandman's affections are genuine. It was by far the worst part of the book. Otherwise it was a pretty okay book, and I give it the rating of THREE AND A HALF STAR OUT OF FIVE!!!

*I received a copy in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley*
Ever wondered what Freddy Krueger might feel? Or if someone would love him?
Well, in Dream Keeper, we get to know what I would call his "cute little brother", the Sandman, who to my surprise, isn't evil at all.
It actually was a cool idea to begin with, and I really felt bad for Nora, especially as the book evolves, but sadly there was loads left unexplored. I really hope the next one gets better!

Thank you very much to the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

It has taken me a while to review this title because I picked it up a few times, and couldn’t ever seem to get into it. I had requested it after following the author on social media for a while, and I was excited to try out some of her work.

I think the disconnect between in this title may just be one of personal preference. I’m not a fan of the sassy narrator in any book, and I lose interest as soon as one appears. Throughout the book, I enjoyed the Sandmans POV but not Nora’s. I felt like I’d seen her in a lot of YA titles before with her quips and hatred of doctors and family thinking she was crazy. She wasn’t interesting for me to read about of from her POV, which is the reason why I’ve rated the book so low.

Another disconnect was that I feel like the fantasy setting and modern day world didn’t mesh very well. Had it been in a higher fantasy, this concept I think could have been really successful. The balance between fantasy and a modern world is very hard to strike, and it felt missed here.

I believe that I would have enjoyed the book more from a third person narrative, as the authors writing had so much potential when she wasn’t trying to have Nora speak to the reader. The book was off to a beautiful start that lost momentum as soon as the narrative voice changed. In addition, making the book a high fantasy set in a world apart from ours may have helped solidify the concept to me. It felt like the book was trying to hard to sell me on the concept of the dream world and the modern world. The elements I buoyed about the plot would have really sang had they been in a different setting.

I understand that a lot of this is just personal opinion, and simply may not match the authors vision of the book. That’s okay! I don’t think I was a good fit as a reader for this book or her style a good fit for my preferences. Thank you again to the publisher for an opportunity to review.

I found this book less than thrilling. I was 50% through before i even cottoned on to who was who. The constant use of I when switching through characters drives me mad. There was not enough explication of the fantasy world or the people within it. I feel like this is yet another young adult book where action overpowers narrative. I dislike it so much it will probably get optioned for film rights and make loads of money. I won't be reading the rest of the series

The premise of this book intrigued me. I’m a sucker for old legends and lesser known stories reimagined, so this held promise. And while I enjoyed certain themes throughout it, I sadly ended up DNF’ing around halfway through, after finding myself skim reading chapters.

The writing didn’t quite pack the punches the story needed for me and I found it dragging in places. I may return to this one again in the future.

My thanks to NetGalley and The Parliament House for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was so excited to read it, because the premise sounded absolutely amazing, and I thought I would really love this book, but turns out I was pretty disappointed with its outcome, and had a lot of problems not only with the characters but with the plot itself.

One of the main problems I had with Dream Keeper was that there was hardly any information or explanation neither about the magic system nor about the world building, and keeping in mind that those two were two of the main focuses of the story, it only made the story much more confusing, and that made the reader ask themselves a lot of questions that were left unanswered. It felt as if we were thrown into this magical world/story and were expected to know everything that was going on.

The characters were a bit choppy and not flashed out. The interactions between them throughout the story felt super forced and awkward, and at times their conversations could have been edited out, because it seemed like they didn’t add anything to the story and were only there to add more words to the book.

The romance was another thing that I wasn’t the biggest fan of. It was too rushed and shoved in your face, and I couldn’t see any chemistry between the two characters.

It’s true that Dream Keeper was very easy to read and super fast paced, and there were certain parts that kept me interesting to see what was going to happen next, but overall that didn’t redeem the rest of the book, sadly.

This book seemed to drag on and on. I could not get into it at all. Everything seemed like i had read it before and after almost a month of forcing myself to read i finally gave up around the 50% mark.

Drawn and captured by the premise of this dark YA fantasy I was hooked from the first page.
Dream Keeper is an amazingly dark YA fantasy tale with a cutesy romance in a real world setting. The dream and nightmare realm elements were perfectly balanced with just the right amount of grotesque murders, horrific nightmare creations that this horror loving book worm craves.

The writing was well paced even flowing beautiful and a neat simplistic style that has you easily reading for hours without realising.
The characters were interesting, relatable and full of depth and continued development I enjoyed Nora and Bens sweet romance despite everything that goes bump in the night always interrupting. I enjoyed the Sandman character mysterious dark yet full of intrigue and depth.
The punchy vivid descriptions and nightmare creations were so compelling finding myself easily transported into the world's following along with baited breath with each eerie and mysterious turn.
I enjoyed the use of dual pov it felt easier to follow with each character narrative easy to identify.
There hasn't been a book in over 6 months that has held my attention long enough to finish in one setting and then rant and rave on every social platform about how every single person needs to read this book NOW!

Beautiful, dark and haunting with exceptional depth Amber R. Duell's debut novel Dream Keeper book 1 in the Dark Dreamer trilogy has left me with a serious need and thirst for book 2 with that said this is my first 5 star read this year..

Many thanks to The Parliament House and Netgalley for this advanced reader copy.
(All opinions are my own and unbiased)

This book was a hauntingly beautiful beginning to something wonderful! I loved everything about this book and can't wait to get more from this author. Straight to the top of my favorites list. Thank you Netgalley for the free earc in exchange for an honest review.