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DREAMHUNTER by Elizabeth Knox Kirkus Star

DREAMHUNTER

Book One of the Dreamhunter Duet

by Elizabeth Knox

Pub Date: March 8th, 2006
ISBN: 0-374-31853-0
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux

A lyrical, intricate and ferociously intelligent fantasy explores the ramifications of treating dreams as commodities. Laura Hame, the adolescent daughter of the first and most famous “dreamhunter,” is content with her privileged life, dominated by her confident cousin Rose. Everything changes when she becomes one of the tiny minority able to enter the otherworldly “Place,” where free-range dreams can be captured and brought back to be sold—for healing, for entertainment and for other, darker, purposes. But when Laura’s father mysteriously disappears, she and Rose are thrust into a web of official intrigue and deceit, and Laura discovers that there is more to her heritage than she ever suspected. Knox starts off slowly, gradually piling on the details of two utterly convincing worlds—one reminiscent of a genteel, turn-of-the-century Australia, the other arid, unsettling and surreal—both of which mask underlying corruption and grim purpose. The characters display equal complexity, with hidden depths and tragic flaws. Once the plot gathers momentum, it builds inexorably to a nightmare climax that satisfies fully while pointing to the promised sequel. Provocative and compelling. (Fantasy. YA)