House of Dreams

Rating:
Summary: BORING,BORING
Review: Always been a fan of Brenda Joyce but sadly she is really testing her fans lately. House of Dreams is badly written with characters that just do not glue together by any stretch of imagination...and the romance is very farfetched and boring..not what one expects from brenda. In fact House of Dreams is the the worst book of 2000 ...Sadly,I will not be buying her books anymore if she continues writing in her suspense romance level..given her last three books ...Brenda,go back to writing historical romance!!

Rating:
Summary: Too Much Violence, Too Little Love
Review: Cass and Tracey are sisters who couldn't be more different. Cassandra de Warenne is an intellectual writer of historical fiction who spends her time living in a quiet English manor with her beloved aunt and niece. She is raising her niece for her wild jet-setting sister Tracey who works for Sotheby's. Cass is introduced to Tracey's latest boyfriend, Antonio, at a formal dinner and is instantly smitten with him. Antonio de la Barca is also an historian, and Cass had attended one of his lectures several years earlier. But that's not all they have in common. Their families, the de Warennes and de la Barca's have a long, tangled and bitter history. Cass' aunt warms her to stay away from Antonio, but she can't believe the dire warnings she hears and is drawn to Antonio in spite of her aunt's warnings.

Cass, Tracey and Tracey's daughter go to visit Antonio at his crumbling castle in Spain, and that's when the intrigue and bloodshed and danger becomes magnified. That's also when I started to lose interest. The ghost of Isabel, who lived in the castle 450 years ago, stalks her descendants, wreaks havoc with their emotions and inhabits Tracey's body while committing unspeakable acts of violence and brutality.

I realize that reading any fictional novel requires "a willing suspension of disbelief", but I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to accept that Isabel could drive a truck and run someone down, shut off the electricity, cause spontaneous combustion, and generally try to maim everyone in her path. The budding love affair between Cass and Antonio was completely overshadowed by the wrath of Isabel. The author did not achieve the proper balance between romance in suspense in this novel, which should have been titled "House of Horrors" rather than "House of Dreams".

Rating:
Summary: Older sister finds love in house with ghosts.
Review: Cassandra de Warenne didn't really mind being the "plain" sister, the stay-at-home surrogate mother for her young niece, the "bookworm" researcher. She liked what she did, writing historical novels. So why did she feel so devastated when her glamorous, flamboyant younger sister arrived at their Aunt Catherine's home with the elegant Antonio de la Barca in tow? Just because he didn't remember her hanging onto his every words during that wonderful summer lecturing tour in New York City didn't mean that she didn't wish her sister all the happiness. Or did it? And why was her Aunt Catherine looking at him with horror written all over her face? Antonio knew the moment he walked into that old house in East Sussex that it contained some very old disturbing vibrations. It wasn't the house itself; it was the people in the house. Somehow they were connected to the ghost that was haunting his place in Madrid. And he was determined to find out why and how they were connected. Brenda Joyce has done an outstanding job in combining romance, torrid sex, murder, mystery, and ghost hunting in a novel that takes place in modern times, but has flashbacks scenes into Victorian England to explain the history. It is artfully done without confusing the reader as to who is who. Definitely a best seller!

Rating:
Summary: Tight suspense but weak romance
Review: Cassandra de Warenne is inexorably intrigued by her sister's new attraction - Antonio de Barca and soon their fateful meeting spells doom for both families. Little did they expect that destiny has planned for Cassandra and Antonio to trace their family roots in Spain to discover that a grisly misdeed and vile betrayal by Antonio's ancestor Rob de Barca inflicted on Isabel de Warenne would make her curses befall on the later generations. The hatred eventually brews and spreads to Cass and her sister over Antonio - and horror soon begins...

HOUSE OF DREAM coming from a seasoned historical romance writer like Brenda Joyce is unexpected. To her legion of fans who craved romance, this novella will be earning their sore disappointment. There is little passion and to the contrary horror reigns. Ms. Joyce nicely interweaves the historical period with contemporary with a dash of mystery, vendetta and violence. The suspense is tingling and chilling - the tenuous relationship of the sisters and the death of Isabel and return of her ghost makes the plot uptight with gripping horror - right up to the point of overexagerration and disbelief.

HOUSE OF DREAMS stays ambivalent - it is a major crossover by Ms. Joyce - and this effort compared to The Third Heiress falters. The ending seems predictible and banal, seemingly slower than the accelerated pace in the beginning. Nevertheless, for fine chills and suspense - HOUSE OF DREAMS is one fine stockful of nightmares.

Rating:
Summary: I do not agree with these reviewers and I'll tell you why...
Review: Cassandra de Warrenne, a woman whose passion is found in the pages of history books, is about to live the nightmare of her life. When her sister, Tracey, brings home her new boyfriend, Antonio de la Barca, Cass never expected the immediate attraction she experiences. Catherine de Warrenne, aunt to Cass and Tracey, never thought she would see another de la Barca in her lifetime, but when she meets Antonio, the horror and memories flood back to her. Isabel de Warrenne, a woman who died 445 years before, is about reek havoc on these two families. But what no one knows is who she is and why she is here' ***** Never in my life did I think I would read a scary book, but this one I could not put down. The character's and the story flowed together so well, I forgot I was reading a book. I kept on looking over my shoulder making sure Isabel wasn't there watching me. Look at the reviews on B&N online and you will see everyone thought this book was 4 or 5 stars! Most reviewers here have only theirselves to blame, since they did not seem to read what the book was about. They simply are used to this author writing a different TYPE of book. However, that does not make this type of book bad! It is EXCELLENT for those of us who like GOTHICS! I don't care what others think, this one sent chills down my spine! Recommended reading! *****...Blair

Rating:
Summary: What Happened to Brenda Joyce?
Review: Dear Brenda, If you wrote this book at the suggestion of an editor you must immediately get rid of him or her. If it came from your own imagination, please take some time off--you really need it. It was so pitiful to see how far off you went in this endeaver that I felt that something must be wrong. I have read all of your other books and while some have been good but not spectacular, most have been very well written and interesting. In this ghost story everything rang false; uninteresting characters, stupid plot, no real "love" just crude and nasty grappling, and I could go on. Don't be like McNaught whose "Night Whispers" was almost as bad and some of your other colleagues who re trying to "crossover". Stay true to yourself and your ability. Sincerely, MSCK

Rating:
Summary: Brenda needs to espy a new story line.
Review: Even while I am writing this I can't believe that I read this book. Brenda Joyce seems to think that her readers need to be beat over the head with every idea. How many times do we need to smell violets on a single page? We know there is a ghost - get on with the story instead of restating everything 100 times. And what is the deal with her use of the word espy? Cass espied everyone in the book. The story line set in the past with Isabelle was much more interesting than the main storyline. The main characters didn't have many redeeming qualities - Tracy should've been killed off towards the beginning. If you want a book that won't take you long to read, than this book is for you - you will be able to skip several paragraphs on each page because they were the same as the page before.

Rating:
Summary: Tense and Riveting but she could have done more w/ premise
Review: First of all, I want to say that I love Brenda Joyce's other works. I'm a very big fan. I loved the concept of this book and found the evil presence affecting everyone intriguing and actually scary.

One problem I noticed right away was that some of characters were pretty unappetizing and very unsympathetic. In fact it was very hard to care about the heroine's sister at all. As others have commented upon, there was a lack of balance between the violent "bad, bad Isabelle ghost" influenced sex between two sets of characters and showing warmth and true sensuality between the main characters. True, they are going through no-stop horror and being terrorized by this angry ancestor but still... Not including some more caring scenes between the main characters to even it out made the book all fear, trauma and drama with some quazi-rape scenes thrown in.

The main problem is that towards the end the heroine just kept panicking and there was no creative way to deal with the what she in encountering. I kept thinking to myself that the subject matter could have been dealt with more creatively and I sensed that even wonderful Brenda Joyce, was stumped as to what to do.

It was riveting through the first half of the book but the constant harping on the sister relationship, the heroine's lack of self esteem because of her beautiful and horribly shallow sister as well as the lack of development of the malevolent force just made me more and more frustrated towards the end.

It's worth reading for the first half and by the time you get frustrated, you can't stop reading it because you have to know WHY all the terrible things have happened and why Isabelle is so bent on vengence.

I would recommend a serious re-write. I'm still a fan but I can't say I'd whole-heartedly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Total disappointment!
Review: I am a Brenda Joyce fan, and I was really disappointed in this one. She is a wonderful historical (The Bragg Saga) and contemporary (Lovers & Liars) author; something that is very rare. However, in her two recent hardcover efforts (The Third Heiress & House of Dreams) she had attempted to combine the two genres, and add paranormal elements. This created two works laden down with scenes of thematic importance, and not much character or romance development.

She might as well have omitted the sex, because in the majority of instances it was anything but romantic. The kind of scenes that resulted might have worked within the framework of a well-developed relationship between the lead characters (read Fires of Paradise w. Shozkay Savage and Lucy Bragg). However, they fell flat and left a bad taste in your mouth with characters that never displayed any real affection for each other. It was a wonderful respite at the cemetery when they hugged and expressed genuine affection for each other, but the book was over 1 paragraph later.

If you are looking for one of her recent works that really shows her great style pick up Deadly Love, under the pseudonym BD Joyce. I hope she turns this one into a series, because the plot and character development is superb.

Rating:
Summary: gothic novel
Review: I cannot believe so many people found this book boring ,or bad, or a flop, or Joyce's worst book, etc. I read most of her novels and I thought this was her best. Not only that I could not put it down, but I lost an entire night reading it. It may have something to do with the fact that I love Gothic literature. Adding romance to a Gothic novel made this book one of my all times favorites. For you who think Joyce's career goes down the drain, you are so completely wrong. I think it goes exactly in the opposite direction.