Dream a Little Dream

Liv Silver’s dreams take on a life of their own in this first book in this Silver Trilogy. Shortly after moving to London and meeting her soon-to-be stepbrother Grayson, both Grayson and his friends begin to appear in Liv’s dreams, performing an occult ritual. Before long they have asked virginal Liv to join in the dangerous game of black magic, including a blood offering that opens a portal into each other’s nocturnal musings through a series of doors. In Liv, Gier (the Ruby Red trilogy) has created a smart heroine who loves a good mystery and has her wits about her. But her precociousness and the fact that most of the action takes place in dreams robs the story of its sense of peril; Olivia remains flippant even in the face of real danger and human sacrifice. The romantic pairings of the main characters and a subplot involving a student with an anonymous Gossip Girl–style blog will likely be explored in more detail in later books, but the main plotline resolves without generating a driving force toward the sequel. Ages 12–up. (Jan.)