It would be pretty freaky to dream like Pete does in this book. Especially considering that he can die in either world because he's a Dreamwalker. I kept thinking about all the dreams I've had where I've come close to dying, or being chased by someone/something. In Pete's world, dreams like that would be life or death.

There were two things I found really interesting about this book, and I learned about two real world phenomenons I did not previously know, or knew little about. One was Pete's disorder, Visual Processing Disorder. VPD happens when a person has trouble processing things he/she sees in the world...information gets scrambled. Pete's VPD starts manifesting in a strange way when he starts to receive messages from words in incorrectly processed street signs, like only seeing the word King in a No Parking sign. He soon realizes that these are indeed messages that are pointing him in a certain direction. Very interesting. The second was the practice of Voodoo. We find out in the book through the character of the villain, St. Croix, that the practice of Voodoo was actually against the law in Haiti up until the 1950s, the power of the practice was so believed and feared. As the author so aptly put it in his afterword, "You don't see anyone pushing to make tarot cards illegal." This kind of gave me the creeps. A supernatural practice so feared that's it's outlawed? Yikes!

This book is creepy in all the right ways. I mean, please stop with the snakes already. *shudder* And then you have an evil spirit that can come and manipulate your dreams. No thanks. The story was definitely "edge of the seat" throughout and Pete was such a great, and likable, character. It's so much easier to get really scared when you care about the characters.

This was my first Russell James novel and I will definitely be checking out his other books in the future. ( )