Review: A Circle of Dreams

Author: Annie Rogers

ISBN: 0977018318

The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN:Editor of Bookpleasures. CLICK TO VIEW Norm Goldman's Reviews

To read Norm's Interview with the authors CLICK HERE

With A Circle of Dreams Annie Rogers continues the saga of the Demontagne-Diamant families for what turns out to be a showdown between the world of the dead, the spirit of Anne-Cecile Diamant, who lived in St. Lucia over two hundred years ago, and the world of the living, the cross-cultured descendents of her lost son Philippe.

Our narrative picks up where the author’s debut novel, A Dream Across Time left off. The story opens with Andre and Jamie Demontagne on their way home from Martinique with their new born son, Philippe. During the car ride to their Jumeaux Estate in St. Lucia, Jamie becomes terribly upset when she hears the crying and moaning of a woman in the wind, bringing back memories of an unpleasant past experience when she was lost in the forest pursuing a woman’s cry.

The couple manages to arrive home safe and sound and are greeted by their four-year old twin daughters, Yvie and Lissa, as well as a close family friend and employee, Bertille, who over the years has played a very important and significant role in their lives. We are reminded, if you did not read the first novel, that it was Bertille who came to Jamie’s rescue, when she was lost in the forest, and it was also this same woman who had become a constant bastion of support.

When Bertille learns that Philippe had been named after Anne-Cecile Diamant’s lost son, her instant response is: “Choosing the name of that lost child tempts the spirits." Even Philippe’s grandmother, Clarisse, feels the same way, although this does prevent her from giving her grandson a two- hundred year old handmade laced yellowed linen baby’s cap that now hangs over his crib. Jamie, on seeing the baby’s cap, experiences an unexplained feeling that she can’t quite put her finger on, all of which sets the stage for the remainder of the novel.

Woven into the plot are Lissa’s mystical and extraordinary powers that are used to protect her brother, Philippe. He is haunted by spirits who whirl around and pull on him however, it is his sister Lissa who is able to pull him back from these anxious ghosts and his unpredictable and scary episodes which cause him to lose touch with reality. Her powers extend to her ability to live in the spiritual world, to see around the corners of the future and to fly in her dreams.It also has enabled her to see a ghostlike figure of a sad woman dressed in a long dress crying out for help and begging her to find her lost son.

One of the principal strengths of this novel is the facility with time, as the authors smoothly weave family history into the narrative. Another is the way in which suspense is built up with curiosity and delay. Readers really want to know what will happen to Philippe, and the authors do not allow the answer to emerge until our interest has been heightened. All of this makes for some very heady and at times chilling reading!