Screamcatcher: Dream Chasers by Christy J. Breedlove: Back to the Nightmares

Screamcatcher: Dream Chasers by Christy J. Breedlove Series: Screamcatcher, #2 Kindle Edition, 250 pg. Fire & Ice Young and New Adult Books, 2020 Read: August 3, 2020 Grab a copy from your local indie bookstore!

What’s Screamcatcher: Dream Chasers About?

Having survived their trip to the world of her family’s dream catcher, Jory and her friends have determined they can help others in the same (or similar) situation they were in—and better yet, they can make some good money off of it. In my post about the first book I said, “I don’t see how this leads to a sequel, in fact, I’d have thought it precluded one.” This? This is the way to a sequel—most of these kids could use a decent income and monetizing this particular skill is a smart move.

I’m going to cheat, again, and use the official blurb:

Seventeen year-old Jory Pike knows a thing or two about Indian lore from her half-blood Chippewa ancestry. She can trap, hunt and fish with the best of them. She has a team of three other teens friends called The Badlands Paranormal Society. Instead of bagging groceries or playing on I-pods, they think they can excel at banishing evil spirits. They hope to cleanse houses and earn fat paychecks for their services.

Dream catchers aren’t just the chic hoops tourists buy at novelty shops—they work. And sometimes they clog up with nightmares until they collapse under their own evil weight, imploding and sending the dreamer into an alternate world. Jory uses her worst nightmare to enter the dream catcher world. She’s pulled her teammates in deliberately. Everything goes right on schedule but they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. Now Jory and her friends are there, trapped between the people who have confessed their sins to the Great Spirit and are seeking a way out, and the monsters and evil spirits, which are happy to keep them trapped in the web world forever.

They were once considered Seekers in the dream world. Now they’ve become vigilantes and call themselves Pathfinders. Is it spiritual enlightenment they after? Or have they now become fatally reckless?

I can’t put it better than that—or more succinctly without being flippant.

The Problem of Peril

These next two paragraphs get a vaguely spoiler-y. Sorry. You’ve been warned.
In the second book of a series, you pretty much take for granted that the series characters will make it to the end—no matter how much danger might be lurking around the corner. So the threat has to hover over the new characters. And for me, I didn’t feel that for a moment for any of the “Seekers” they were trying to help get out of the nightmare world. Yes, there were obstacles, deadly ones at that—but, I just never doubted that anyone would survive.

It didn’t seem that any of the Badlands Paranormal Society felt that much different than I did—it seemed like they were just approaching the whole adventure as just another day at the office (or at the fast-food cash register, they are that age). And while this is a job to them, it shouldn’t feel like they’re punching a time-clock already, they’re too fresh at this to be so jaded. If Breedlove had made them confident to only turn and make the reader and the characters see that confidence as hubris, I’d have been all over it. But no, it was a near-blasé attitude toward the dangers and obstacles they faced. That just didn’t ring true or right for me.

So, what did I think about Screamcatcher: Dream Chasers?

That said, I liked it. It’s imaginative, you never know what’s going to be lurking around the next corner and how the team will get through it. These nightmare worlds are fantastic, the monsters they’re filled with are, too—and the opportunities to do just whatever in them seem almost endless. The characters are likeable—but they could all use a little more depth. But in too many ways, this felt like a slightly tweaked version of the previous book. The problem with peril that I just talked about is another stumble. If Breedlove can address those, and I imagine she will, I can see myself sticking around for a while with these books, and I do think people in the market for a YA fantasy adventure—particularly one not in the Western European mold—will have fun with this book.

Now that I know how the series is going to go, the question I had last time about how Breedlove could build on Web World is answered and I like the answer. I see that I’ve taken so long to write this up that the third volume in this series is available, I’ll be ordering it here shortly. I have great hopes for it.

Disclaimer: I received this novel from the author in exchange for this post and my honest opinion—I appreciate that, and do apologize that it’s taken so long to get it read and posted.

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