Meet Ashley Patterson, the brainy, babelicious "computer whiz" and confused heroine of Tell Me Your Dreams. Although she has a cushy job at Global Computer Graphics, a fast-growing start-up in Silicon Valley, her life falls short of fulfilling. She's lonely, shy, and absolutely convinced she's being stalked. What's worse, the only sympathetic ear around is her father, Dr. Patterson, the heartless heart surgeon, who has the charm of an electric eel and the compassion of a tarantula. Given her options, Ashley looks to the heavens for support and offers up an ultimatum to the Almighty: "I'll make a deal with you, God. If it doesn't rain, it means that everything is all right, that I've been imagining everything." Of course, it starts raining buckets just paragraphs later, setting off a car alarm of an omen about our computer cutie's fate.
Enter Toni Prescott and Alette Peters. They both work with Ashley at Global Computer Graphics, but the similarities end there. Toni is a saucy, British vixen with a penchant for Internet dating and discotheques. La bella Italiana Alette, on the other hand, is a wannabe artist who prefers quiet, dreamy weekends with beefcake painters. Reminiscent of junior high school, Toni and Alette do their best to keep Ashley out of their cool clique, but find it difficult when a string of murders irrevocably binds them together. Based on a true story and laden with realistic details--not to mention a whopper of an ending--_Tell Me Your Dreams_ is vintage Sheldon. However, there is one necessary caveat: avoid moviegoer types who insist on telling you the entire plot before you have a chance to see it. You should be doing this anyway, but take extra care with this book. Once the surprise ending is blown, so is the fun in reading it. --Rebekah Warren
From Publishers Weekly
Perennial bestseller Sheldon (The Best Laid Plans) doesn't get under the reader's skin here as he does at his best, even though he weaves together many of his time-tested elements?childhood horror and its consequences; lust and murder as bedfellows; a pretty, hapless heroine; good men in the legal and medical professions trying to undo the wrongs done by others. Despite gory crime scene depictions, the old master, uncharacteristically, has left out the suspense and the layers of feeling. We finger the serial murderer all too quickly, just as we know before we know that Ashley's creepy physician father, Steven, abused her as a child. We never doubt that goodhearted lawyer David Singer will convince hostile judge Tessa Williams that, yes, multiple personality disorder happens, and that, morally and legally, it separates the doer from the deed. Nor is it any surprise that psychiatrist Gilbert Keller, spurred on by personal as well as professional longings, takes Allison apart and puts her back together the right way?or does he? A prefatory sentence says the novel is based on real cases. Maybe so, but one wishes that the authentic details had been told with genuine passion. Literary Guild main selection. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Description:
Amazon.com Review
Meet Ashley Patterson, the brainy, babelicious "computer whiz" and confused heroine of Tell Me Your Dreams. Although she has a cushy job at Global Computer Graphics, a fast-growing start-up in Silicon Valley, her life falls short of fulfilling. She's lonely, shy, and absolutely convinced she's being stalked. What's worse, the only sympathetic ear around is her father, Dr. Patterson, the heartless heart surgeon, who has the charm of an electric eel and the compassion of a tarantula. Given her options, Ashley looks to the heavens for support and offers up an ultimatum to the Almighty: "I'll make a deal with you, God. If it doesn't rain, it means that everything is all right, that I've been imagining everything." Of course, it starts raining buckets just paragraphs later, setting off a car alarm of an omen about our computer cutie's fate.
Enter Toni Prescott and Alette Peters. They both work with Ashley at Global Computer Graphics, but the similarities end there. Toni is a saucy, British vixen with a penchant for Internet dating and discotheques. La bella Italiana Alette, on the other hand, is a wannabe artist who prefers quiet, dreamy weekends with beefcake painters. Reminiscent of junior high school, Toni and Alette do their best to keep Ashley out of their cool clique, but find it difficult when a string of murders irrevocably binds them together. Based on a true story and laden with realistic details--not to mention a whopper of an ending--_Tell Me Your Dreams_ is vintage Sheldon. However, there is one necessary caveat: avoid moviegoer types who insist on telling you the entire plot before you have a chance to see it. You should be doing this anyway, but take extra care with this book. Once the surprise ending is blown, so is the fun in reading it. --Rebekah Warren
From Publishers Weekly
Perennial bestseller Sheldon (The Best Laid Plans) doesn't get under the reader's skin here as he does at his best, even though he weaves together many of his time-tested elements?childhood horror and its consequences; lust and murder as bedfellows; a pretty, hapless heroine; good men in the legal and medical professions trying to undo the wrongs done by others. Despite gory crime scene depictions, the old master, uncharacteristically, has left out the suspense and the layers of feeling. We finger the serial murderer all too quickly, just as we know before we know that Ashley's creepy physician father, Steven, abused her as a child. We never doubt that goodhearted lawyer David Singer will convince hostile judge Tessa Williams that, yes, multiple personality disorder happens, and that, morally and legally, it separates the doer from the deed. Nor is it any surprise that psychiatrist Gilbert Keller, spurred on by personal as well as professional longings, takes Allison apart and puts her back together the right way?or does he? A prefatory sentence says the novel is based on real cases. Maybe so, but one wishes that the authentic details had been told with genuine passion. Literary Guild main selection.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.