#dreams lie beneath

[bigdreamsandwildthings]

Cozy 🩵

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

Dreams Lie Beneath by Rebecca Ross Rating: 4/5

So imagine if the BFG had to fight the nightmares instead of catching them in jars. And if he was a seventeen-year-old girl instead of a giant. That's pretty much what Dreams Lie Beneath is, with an enemies-to-lovers romance stirred in.

It was fun. It kept me engaged with its interesting world-building around the dreams and nightmares. And the tension in the relationship between Clementine and Phelan was well-written and never felt too over-dramatic. The climax didn't pack quite enough of a punch for me but I did like the twist.

If you want a fantasy standalone that's low stakes with unusual magic or you want a YA book with similar vibes to One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig, this might be for you.

[bookishlyvintage]

Divine Rivals, Rebecca Ross [more details]

[stardustjimin]

currently reading 5th book of Rebecca Ross' and i want to say that i really love her writing. it's beautiful and her books (the one i already read and am reading now) are always page turner. she's really a good storyteller.

(and i really love all the characters! they're so lovable)

[edenblossom5]

currently reading: "dreams lie beneath" by rebecca ross

synopsis

A story about magic and the captivating power of dreams.

A curse plagues the realm of Azenor-during each new moon, magic flows from the nearby mountain and brings nightmares to life. Only magicians, who serve as territory wardens, stand between people and their worst dreams.

Clementine Madigan is ready to take over as the warden of her small town, but when two magicians challenge her, she is unwittingly drawn into a century-old conflict. She seeks revenge, but as she secretly gets closer to Phelan, one of the handsome young magicians, secrets begin to rise. Clementine must unite with her rival to fight the realm's curse, which seems to be haunting her every turn.

[andreai04]

One does not realize how powerful a dream is, in the sleeping world as well as the waking one, until it has been stolen from them.

[the-thimble-reader]

[elisemightcanread]

Dreams Lie Beneath by Rebecca Ross

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

Strong character development? No

Loveable characters? Nope

Diverse cast of characters? Absolutely Not

Flaws of characters a main focus? Nope.

Dreams Lie Beneath is a book of missed opportunities.

Revenge stories are usually easy to get into because of how cathartic they are. Except in this story the revenge is over something that narratively feels so small that the want for revenge comes across as more petty than just.

Spoilers Below:

Clementine wants revenge on Lennox and Phelan because Lennox challenged her father to become the magician of their town and won. Sure he wasn't polite about it but neither were Clementine and her father and he won fair and square. This is something that is so easily "fixable" that Clementine can simply challenge Lennox on the next new moon and win her town back. The only reason she doesn't is because her and her father think that would be morally wrong. But revenge is ok I guess? Clementine and her father don't even have to leave their town but they get up and go the next day and then we keep being told they're heart broken despite actively choosing to leave and then not win their spot back.

I think this could have been saved by having there be some in canon law about a magician not being allowed to reclaim their or their mentor's town and that they have to leave town if they lose a challenge. That way their hate towards Lennox and Phelan would feel justified since they would have actually lost their home in a way they can't get back.

Instead they just come off as childish and prideful but the narrative wants you to be on their side.

The revenge itself is also very petty but kind of pointless. Clementine decides to disguise herself, become Phelan's assistant, and then write an expose about his family. Except that Lennox and Phelan are nobles and I don't see how anyone would believe or care about an article written by a random girl who lost to Lennox in a fight. I'm 100% sure the repercussions would be worse for her than them.

Writing wise the story is all tell and basically no show.

For example: We're told that Clementine is an artist but when she gives up her artistic skill for her disguise we never see her grieve its loss. She just fully accepts she can't make art anymore. There's some moments where she looks at paintings and thinks "I can't do that anymore, that's sad" but that's the most we get. I just really wish there was a scene where she picks up her sketchbook and tries but her skill is just gone and she gets upset about it. I honestly thought that she maybe didn't lose her skill at all because she doesn't try to make any art until the end of the book. Also turns out she didn't lose her ability to make art forever she just has to practice to get back to where she was at previously and while that's incredibly frustrating as a creator it's not nearly as terrifying as the idea that you'll never get that skill back no matter what you do. So even there the stakes are gone and any meaning behind giving up her art is essentially gone.

We're also told repeatedly that Phelan is a good guy but the most we see him do is not leave his work partner for dead and being rich enough to pay the taxes for his part of town (this is never implied to effect him monetarily). Phelan is also supposed to be a good magician but he's never successfully protected his portion of town in the new moons he's worked there and has actually been heavily injured while trying to do so twice. From a reader's perspective he comes across as a pitifully bad magician (at least in terms of fighting nightmares which is his job). Sorry Phelan but you're not beating those nepotism allegations.

In terms of characterization none of the cast feel like real people. They're all bland and 1 dimensional. Clementine is an artist who can't do art and wants revenge, Phelan is a good rich guy, Imonie is a motherly archetype. After reading the book I'm still not able to describe who the characters are as people.

The romance is also just lust at first sight but the characters and the narrative think it's love. It's supposed to be enemies to lovers but I never believe that Clementine hates him.

The magic system isn't explored at all. There's three schools of magic: avertana, metamara, and deviah. The most information we get on them is that avertana is "practical magic," metamara is "stage magic," and deviah is basically enchanting anything that can be considered art, even armor. These distinctions aren't made clear as there's never any clear explanation as to what counts as practical and what counts as stage. Also practical magic can be used to place enchantments on rooms (which one could argue that architecture is a form of artistry) but only deviah can be used to enchant armor.

There's nothing wrong with writing a simple magic system but if you're going to split it up why not make each type of magic distinct?

Overall Dreams Lie Beneath is a frustrating read that had the potential to be a whole lot more than it was.

Started: Sunday July 28 2024 Finished: Wednesday August 7 2024

[between-the-pages657]

Ah…that explains why Phelan and Clem don’t dream.

[allyofavonlea]

★★☆☆☆ (2.75 stars)

A true Rebecca Ross story, rife with enchanting prose, tender romances, a hint of bittersweet longing, and a tiny bit of heartbreak along the way.

The story follows Clementine, who seeks revenge on the two magicians who usurped her family’s wardenship of her small town. She begins working with one of the two magicians, Phelan, and uncovers a whirlwind of secrets along with a centuries-old conflict between powerful players.

This was not my favorite of Ross’s works by a long shot but I still enjoyed the worldbuilding and relationships between her chatacters which Ross really excels at. Despite this, it took me several weeks to get through, because the story itself didn’t grasp me the same way her other books have.

Still, the dreaming-based magic system and the countless deceptions within the story were great fun to read.

[elif-in-wonderland]

Thank you for the tag @riddles-n-games

My 2025 list:

1. City of smoke and starlight

2. Realm of wrath and ruin

3. Dreams lie beneath

4. The Siren

5. Glorious rivals

Plus two anthology books from the Twin Crowns universe that don’t have a title yet.

9 BOOKS I PLAN TO READ IN 2025

inspired by @malinaa <33

tagging: @deadpoets @lorenlily @tolerateit @acotars @permanentreverie @duncantashi @ravenclairee @arabellas @tuseranita @reputayswift @henrywinteris @finnickodaiir @notebookmusical @thenighttrain @bloodmoonlich @jeanmoreaux @jakeperalta @aaronstveit @sierradeaton @swkywalker @sweetreveriee @sororygilmore

[hragon]

I've been reading more this year and I've seen tier lists floating around the internet, so I thought it would be fun to make my own and update it as I go along.

[out-of-heaven-and-hell]

Bethesda and Frederick tag dump

[goaskangel]

simon ‘ghost’ riley overstimulating his sweet gf !

cw : headlock, overstim, slight dubcon, slapping, sexy ass simon

poor you, thinking your bulky boyfriend would return stressed and in need of some relief. a massage maybe, a good lunch, a small kiss from his darling. as logical as it sounds, simon came back with an urge that he just couldn’t get rid off. 

greeted with a geared up, tall man, you can’t even finish a hi baby before he practically walks all over you. pushing you inside, his gloved palms immediately finding their place on your waist and chest, closing the front door. 

“so fuckin’ tough it is,” he squeezes your face as he towers over you, “bein’ away from you.” 

he finds himself breathing in the soft scent of your hair, leaning deep into your neck and kissing your neck behind his cloth mask. you drop gently into his arms as he holds you close. the intoxicating aroma of his natural musk and smokiness of gunpowder radiating from beneath his gear. 

later, even after telling him how you’ve cooked for him, cleaned the sheets for him, organized the home so it’s all cozy for him, simon tells you he’ll get to it but for right now, he needs you. you laid back across his still geared body, his dirty, mean, mean words right above your ear. his heavy attachments bruising your half nude top and back of your hips as he forces you to stay down, his left arm down to hold your left leg open as his thick, right fingers pump thoroughly into your cunt. 

“ngh-mmm, simon!” you moan out desperately as he pulls what feels like your fifteenth orgasm. your legs shaking from the coerced impact, your slick dribbling down your open thighs onto his getup. your face being as wet, flushed cheeks covered in tears. 

he doesn’t care, in fact he’s awfully amused by the reaction he’s managed to get out of you, the reaction he’s been dreaming about. 

“gonna give me anotha one, yeah?” his bare fingers circle your chubby, raw clit. 

“mm-mm, can’t. don’t wanna.” you yelp and arch off his stomach when he sends a harsh slap! onto your pussy. “hell you mean you ‘don’t wanna’? ya cunt’s tellin’ me otherwise, dovey. be good now n don’t lie to me, or i’ll really hurt ya.” emphasizing on the word hurt as he leaves your limp leg to wrap his husky arm snug around your head, choking another cry out from you. 

“yeah? you got tha’?” you nod profusely as much you can, making him chuckle to your barely able form. 

the sensitivity doesn’t go down, now instead of being able to see his skilled forearm fidget in and out of you, you can only feel it. staring at the dim ceiling with teary eyes with his heavy breathing and whispers.

a very subtle yet strong wave of pleasure washes over you as you thrash and whine under his pressured hold. “yeeeaah, was that so hard?” he lets go of you, his mask under his lower lip as he kisses your dazed face. all he wanted was to make you feel good, lovey!

masterlist

[thebibliosphere]

I’ve had an increase in rainbow aura with my migraines lately (I used to get them once a year, if that. Now, I’ve had it twice in one month) so I’ve become somewhat paranoid whenever something flashes over my vision.

Sometimes, it's just light reflecting off my phone, but it still makes me freeze up in a fear response when it happens because it usually means I’ve got about 20 minutes before I’m in agony.

Apparently, this new paranoia extends into my dreams now, too, because I was running down a long corridor, aware that there was something behind me that I needed to escape, but all of a sudden, in my dream, rainbow zigzags consumed my vision, and I stopped, dead and went, “fuck, migraine.”

That's when I became aware of James Bond/Daniel Craig standing beside me, gun drawn.

“Oh, shit. Do you need to lie down?” he asked while I stared at him.

I said, “What about the thing chasing us?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, darling. If you need to lie down you can lie down. I’ll just kill them.”

I blinked at him for a bit, still winded from running then said, “Sure,” starting to get to my knees, ready to lie down on the cold stone floor beneath us.

“Sure?”

“Yeah. Kill ‘em. I’m just gonna...” I gestured vaguely at the floor. “Be right here, I guess.”

“You can go upstairs, you know,” he said, loading a fresh clip into his gun. “This museum has a hotel on top of it.”

“Oh good,” I said, starting to suspect this was a dream and not Daniel Craig about to murder the people chasing me because I had a migraine. “I’ll do that then.”

So I got back up and started climbing the stairs that looked an awful lot like the stairs in the Kelvin Grove Art Gallery, only to abruptly walk into Deathstroke and Nightwing doing their best to kill each other in the corridor of what was clearly a hotel based on the room service tray Nightwing was using to deflect projectiles.

They froze. I looked at them. They looked at me. “I’ve got a migraine,” I said,

“Shit, sorry,” Nightwing said, putting down his tray as both men stepped back to let me walk down the decimated corridor. “We’ll be more quiet.”

“Room 13 is open,” Deathstroke helpfully informed me.

“Is there a body in it?” I asked, now leaning against the wall, less walking along, more sliding.

“Not anymore.”

“Do you need anything?” Nightwing asked, “pain killers? Ice pack?”

I waved them off and made my way into room 13 where David Jason dressed as Detective Jack Frost looked up at me from the book he was reading on the bed.

“This is a dream,” he informed me.

“No it isn’t,” I said, despite knowing it was as I hobbled over to the bed and flopped down beside him. “And this room was supposed to be empty.”

“Open, not empty,” corrected Jack Banon who had taken David Frost’s place, dressed like young Alfie from Pennyworth as he sat beside me on the bed, leaning back against the headboard. “There’s a very distinct difference between the two. Oh, don’t look at me like that. Who do you think moved the body?”

“I need to sleep,” I said, “if I can fall asleep, the migraine might go away.”

“That's all right,” he said. “You do that. I’ll make sure no one else comes in. Oh, just one thing before you do.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out something I couldn't quite see and held it out to me. “You’ll need this.”

“What is it?” I said, my brain doing the dream thing where it refuses to read books or interpret numbers correctly. “I can’t see, what is it?”

“Oft, sorry. Can’t tell you that. More than my job’s worth.”

“You’re job...”

“Yeah.” and thats when he leaned over, stuck me with a needle and said, “Night night.”

And I woke up to the sound of @mothman-etd getting into the shower and Holly Mop wiggling under thre covers with me.

First words out of my mouth were, “What the fuck?”

And then I immediately pulled up Tumblr to write this down before I forget it because what the fuck.

Didn't wake up with a migraine though so... *knock on wood*

[dotheangstything]

DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO FUCKING START.