FALLING AWAKE

Isabel Wright, a Belvedere Center for Sleep Research analyst and Level Five lucid dreamer, meets the man of her dreams in bestseller Krentz's (Truth or Dare , etc.) romantic thriller. When Isabel's boss, Martin Belvedere, is found dead in his study, his son, Randolph, who was always scornful of his father's belief in dreamers capable of uncovering secrets, takes over the business. He fires Isabel before he realizes that her crime-solving through dreams pays most of the center's bills. Isabel trains to be a motivational speaker while falling into the arms of fellow lucid dreamer Ellis Cutler (aka "Dream Man"), whose dreams she had been decoding and who has likewise been dreaming of her (he thinks of her as "Tango Dancer"). Isabel's former co-workers at the Belvedere Center and Ellis's colleagues from his secret government agency provide a rich assortment of suspects and victims who must be sorted out by the lover-detectives as they wrestle good guys from the dark side, repair troubled marriages and fix ailing businesses. Though her New Age imagination sometimes runs into overdrive, Krentz holds her readers' attention with attractive, appealing protagonists, flawed but sympathetic secondary characters and winningly self-mocking humor. Her unflagging positive energy proves so overwhelming that the reader will happily make her way through a story that defies logic, based on psychology that defies reason, to a happy ending that defies description. Agent, Stephen Axelrod . (Nov.)

Forecast: Krentz grinds 'em out like sausage, and this one is spicier than most. It should sell fantastically well—it's a featured selection of several book clubs—even though it gives new meaning to the term "suspension of disbelief."