Blood Dreams

Through the haze of a dream that isn’t a dream, Dani Justice sees events in a way few others can. Her dreams are “vision dreams” and they play over and over while she sleeps, each time giving her a different twist or hint to the final outcome, to the ending scene of a crime to be committed. Along with her identical twin sister, Paris, Dani has joined Haven, an organization of psychics brought together by Noah Bishop. Noah himself heads up the FBI’s Special Crimes Unit—special in that it brings together a group a group of psychics, each with their own unique talent. As the dreams intensify, Dani is drawn back to her home in Venture, Georgia, a community within Prophet County. Moving back home with Paris feels as if she never left, especially when her former love, Sheriff Marc Purcell also wanders back into her life. Well, not exactly wanders…there’s a killer on the loose in Venture and he’s not your every day killer. No, this is a serial killer with a trail that began in Boston just a few short months ago.

Noah Bishop has been tasked to head up the investigation into this killer in response to the killing of a powerful senator’s daughter. Sensing there is more than just your average, every day murderer, Bishop brings in his team of psychics to track the menace before he kills again. When the killer turns up in Venture, the Special Crimes Unit and Haven need to move and move fast. The clock is running.

BLOOD DREAMS is the first of Kay Hooper’s books this reviewer has read. Becoming literally, an overnight fan (after starting on a Friday afternoon and reading straight through until the end), this reviewer has already bought most of Ms. Hooper’s back list. If the preceding stories in the Bishop/Special Crime Scene books are half as good as this one this reviewer will be one happy camper.

Ms. Hooper combines the tension of a well done police procedural with well constructed crime elements and adds a brilliant layer of psychic intrigue making BLOOD DREAMS a spell binding read. Her characters are real to life; their psychic skills realistically portrayed and an integral part of their makeup and the storey. Ms. Hooper takes her readers into the hopes and frustrations a psychic feels. Indeed, Bishop’s wife Miranda states the psychic’s dilemma so well when she says that if you change the premonition, do you make it worse? Dani knows how the story will end; she fears acknowledging that end, yet knows it will come, despite her hopes, wishes and actions to change a destiny she cannot change.

There are not only two sets of twins in the story, which Ms. Hooper beautifully demonstrates that “twin connection”. There are also soulmates, bonded together on a deeper spiritual level and demonstrates their intense communication through her well crafted words.

BLOOD DREAMS is not only a thrill ride in the telling. The epilogue is merely a conclusion of sorts as the reader catch’s his or her breath only to find evil may still lurk in peaceful Venture, Georgia.

This reviewer is eager to read the second book in this new series by Kay Hooper. It is with frustration she finds she is going to have to wait to do so simply because it is not yet due out for a bit yet. Run, don’t walk to your nearest purveyor of good reading and order or pick up your copy of BLOOD DREAMS now.

December 2007