Love, love, loved this one. Fascinating characters, a great setting with multiple layers and variants, exciting plot, enough foreshadowing that things made sense when revealed, but without breaking suspense. Just...loved it!

Another year...another re-read. ( )

Entertaining fantasy with a touch of mystery.

This is a world that is used to dealing with 'sensitives' - those who can pick up on others' emotions and also broadcast their own. But Mikael Lee's 'gift' exceeds what anyone is used to. He might even call it more of a curse. He has periodic dreams in which he enters the consciousness of a murder victim, following them all the way to their death. However, his tendency to broadcast these grisly sensations to those around him has not earned him an excess of goodwill.

Meanwhile, a young blind woman, Shironne, has her own special gift. Although her hyper-sensitivity has made her life difficult, she has agreed to work with the military, helping them identify murder victims: she has the ability to sense things about the deceased when she touches a body.

It's nearly immediately clear that Shironne and Mikael, although they've never met, are connected in some psychic manner. Indeed, Shironne is eager to meet the man she senses in her dreams, whom she half-jokingly refers to as the Angel of Death.

Now, it appears that murders related to sinister 'blood magic' rituals are occurring, echoing a bloody massacre that happened some years before, and which lives on in infamy. Mikael and Shironne must both work to uncover the murderers before more are killed horribly.

Recommended for those who have finished reading all about Carol Berg's or Sarah Monette's angsty yet attractive young men, and are looking for more...

I would definitely pick up the sequel to this one! (Don't worry, there's no cliffhanger here, though.)

Many thanks to NetGalley and ROC for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are solely my own. ( )

J. Cheney first came on the scene in 2013 with her first novel, The Golden City. Since then she's written many fantasy-based books including Dreaming Death. From the first few chapters I knew this book was going to good. Cheney does an excellent job building up the plot and building the complex world around the characters. Although I enjoyed the first half of the book, it wasn't until the second half when the story pulled me in.

The story is told from two different points of view: Mikael Lee and Shironne Anjir. Both characters have magical abilities. Mikael can dream of someone's death. He's not an onlooker, but sees through the eyes of the victim. Shironne is a sensitive. She can sense other people's emotions and thoughts. Because of her gift, Shironne has gone blind. These two come from different worlds but are thrown together to help solve several murders and the mystery surrounding them.

This is my first novel by Cheney, but after reading it, it made me want to go back and read her short stories and other novels. Even though the build-up in the beginning was a little slow for me, as a whole, the story was really good. I immediately wanted to read the next book in the series. Though I have no idea when it's coming out. Until then I shall have to content myself with reading Cheney's other works.

Read more at http://www.toreadornottoread.net/2016/02/review-dreaming-death.html#wUePrIGjhE9A... ( )

Dreaming Death is essentially a murder mystery set within a complex, nuanced fantasy world. The worldbuilding is a lot to absorb at first, but stick with it - understanding the different cultures, religions, and magic systems at play makes the story that much richer, and the pace does gradually pick up. There's also a great cast of multidimensional characters. I especially like the heroine, Shironne, because she doesn't let her limitations define her. All in all, Dreaming Death is an entertaining series opener with an impressively detailed setting. I look forward to picking up the sequel. ( )

Dreaming Death is the first in a new series by the author of the Golden City trilogy. Instead of historical Portugal, we are now in an entirely new world with its own rules and order. Mikael Lee dreams of murder and death while Shironne lives his visions. They have never met, because others have felt it safer that way. But a series of murders means that this is going to change. And nothing will be the same again. Because in a world where power is shifting, and the balance between ethnic groups is delicate, someone is unleashing chaos and only Mikael and Shironne can stop him.

A very interesting start to a new series, there's a lot of world-making here, and I still think there are bits that need to be resolved. The blind heroine with extreme touch sensitivity is an interesting POV that I haven't encountered before, although Cheney has explored the possibilities of touch sensitivity in some of her short fiction. The next book apparently picks up a month later, and I can't wait to see what has happened in the meantime.

Recommended for fans of Cheney's other works or interesting fantasy in general. ( )

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: Dreaming Death is a dark fantasy with an excellent premise, decent execution but some of the world building slowed the story down.

Opening Sentence: Liran Prifata’s dove gray uniform jacket lay to one side, his shirt tangled with it, pale blotches on the bare dirt.

The Review:

Dreaming Death is a dark fantasy novel set in a complicated world. I was very excited to get a copy of this novel off of NetGalley. I was intrigued to read a story about a girl who can find out emotions by touch and a man who dreams death, whose dreams are so potent that they reach out to the girl. This novel has an excellent premise and decent execution but was bogged down by the world building.

Dreaming Death begins with a tragic death which lays out the framework of the main characters and their abilities. Mikael Lee is a sensitive whose powers have grown into dreaming the particularly painful deaths of those who are murdered. He sees the person’s death as if he was the victim. He sees through their eyes. He doesn’t feel everyone who is murdered, just mainly the ones that are going to be particularly impactful to the world around him. As a consequence of the dreams, he pushes out the emotions and feelings of the murdered person so that anyone sensitive around him also experiences his dream. The dreams have gotten so bad that Mikael also mimics the wounds.

Shironne Anjir has been helping the army solve Mikael’s dreams. She picks up the visions that Mikael often forgets. Also, if the body has been found, she is able to uncover more clues which often lead to solving the case. Shironne wants to meet Mikael, whom she has dubbed the Angel of Death. She feels this strange pull to him but she is considered a child still (at seventeen) so she isn’t allowed to meet a man who is in his early twenties. Shironne is a touch sensitive, her senses so developed that she can’t see. Most sensitives like her often starve to death because they can’t get past the sensations of taste and the impurities in food.

I felt terrible for both Mikael and Shironne. They both had a somewhat privileged life but with their powers, it makes them both a target for bad people. They are also limited to their station in life, Shironne should never have met Mikael. I was so excited to read their first interaction with each other. The buildup was so exciting and with what had been revealed about their powers, I really wanted to know how they would act around one another.

I had a hard time distinguishing between the races, who was what race and why, along with all the mixed races and how they related to the many Families. There was also the history of the land, how it was conquered and the race of the conquerors. I think if I read this again, I would make a chart of the different races and Families. I ended up having to skip the whole race thing as the story went on, as long as I didn’t dwell on how people were or weren’t related then I could stay in the story. Also, a lot of characters are related by adoption (through Family or skin color) which added to some more confusion. There was also the hierarchy of the classes, especially between the police, army and Family. The police seemed to hold more power than the ruling class.

There are quite a few different narrators throughout the story. Mikael and Shironne are the main ones but we do see some side characters. I am intrigued by some of the side stories, especially Captain Cerradine, Deborah and Kai.

Dreaming Death wraps up wonderfully. I just felt a little sad towards Mikael and Shironne relationship. I really hope in the next novel we get to see their relationship grow more. I think this series can only get better with the second book. I only wonder if it will stick with Mikael and Shironne or move on to one of the other characters.

Notable Scene:

Shironne reached out her hand and touched a familiar surface. Recognizing the rubbery texture of a corpse’s skin, she took off her right glove, tucked it into a coat pocket, and laid her hand on the body. The feel of river water reached her first through the light contact. She pressed her hand more firmly against the side of the man’s chest. His skin shifted slightly under her fingers, already losing its fragile hold on muscles and bone. The impulses of his dead mind flooded through the contact, though, immediately overriding the physical impressions. Faint memories lingered in this body: of whom he’d been in life, of how he had died.

“His name was Liran Prifata and he was a police officer,” she said.

“How does she know that?” Officer Harinen whispered, not quietly enough.

“She simply does,” Kassannan replied.

“The body still holds traces of memory, even though the spirit is gone. The memories are like leaves fallen off a tree. They don’t know they’re dead yet. So this told me,” she said, laying her bare hand against the man’s torn chest. She concentrated, sifting through the disordered fragments of memory. “Three nights ago. He didn’t know why they took him, I think. He asked over and over why, but they never answered him.”

FTC Advisory: ROC/Penguin provided me with a copy of Dreaming Death. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )

I love Cheney's Golden City trilogy, and her new book (out in February) explores a whole new secondary fantasy world. At heart, this is a detective story with magical twists: a policeman is murdered in some sort of bizarre ritual. In the city, Mikael is locked in a dream, forced to experience the stranger's brutal death. Mikael's agony radiates to a likewise gifted sensitive, Shironne, whose abilities are already being used by local authorities to solve murder investigations. Mikael and Shironne don't know each other, but as more people are murdered, they are drawn together to stop the mayhem and figure out their own bizarre connection through dreams and death.

The world-building here is intense. Not only is the magic fresh and new, but the city and its Six Families hint at deep material for more books. I love how Cheney handles the sensory issues around Shironne's blindness. It makes descriptions all the more important.

I'm really excited to read more novels in the Palace of Dreams series. This world has incredible potential, and Shironne and Mikael are fantastic characters to follow. ( )