Seduce Me in Dreams: A Three Worlds Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

I thought Seduce Me in Dreams was pretty good, and even though Franks takes her paranormal romance act to a sci-fi setting this time, Seduce Me in Dreams very much fits her formula which means that Seduce Me in Dreams falls a bit more on the steamy side of the steam vs story balance.

Seduce Me in Dreams kicks off with an attention grabbing opening as our alpha male hero Commander Bronse Chapel piggy-backs a critically wounded special forces team member out of hostile territory on a dessert planet. The next few chapters bog down as we are brought up to speed with our hero's history, get up close and personal with several members of his team, and are introduced to our petite yet powerful heroine Ravenna who visits our hero in his dreams long before they meet in the flesh. I would have been happier if I'd gotten the in-depth bios a little later in the story once I was a bit more invested in the characters - since there were a lot of good characters among Chapel's team and Ravenna's little family of psychics.

But once the story got going, I found that I really liked Bronse despite being conflicted at times about the way that Ravenna causes him to loose his center and his focus, and how after a big speech to Ravenna about how he has been taught to cherish woman before they 'join' for the first time, he is no where as considerate during their second encounter. I didn't connect as well with Ravenna, she is so busy being strong all the time that I thought she was a little flat, but I am hugely hero-centric so that wasn't a deal breaker for me.

Speaking of hero material, I really loved Bronse's second in command Lasher and he is clearly positioned to take the lead when the series continues with Seduce Me in Flames. And with a great deal of the series setup out of the way, I am actually looking forward to seeing where Franks takes Lasher and Bronse's new and expanded team next time round.

Bronse is the head of a unit that's the best of the best of the Interplanetary Militia's first response teams - they get sent into situations where no one else can get results. He's been having fleeting dreams warning him that he's in danger, dreams that seem to have proven correct since he's carting his new communications officer who's been critically injured, across miles of black sand to their waiting ship, from a mission the two were on that went completely, inexplicably wrong. When they rejoin his team, his odd behavior draws their attention and he confesses to his second-in-command, Lasher, that he's had a gut feeling that he's going to die on a mission and asks him to warn the team to be on alert. Later, he has his first real dream where he sees the beautiful woman who's been warning him.

Ravenna is the leader of the Chosen Ones, a group of young people with special gifts who live in a temple and were protected and worked for the people of their village as healers, telepaths and more. Ravenna and her brother Kith were sold by the villagers to a vicious warlord as an offering to their god - Ravenna is a precognitive, among other things, and she's foreseen danger to Bronse, as well as his role in her rescue. She's been trying to warn him, but didn't know she'd be able to appear to him and was as shocked as he was to find herself standing in front of him in his dream.

It isn't long afterwards that Bronse and his crew find out that they've been betrayed from within the IM and Ravenna's warning becomes clearer - Bronse must not be separated from his team. She's also desperate for him to fulfill the second part of her vision and rescue her because now she's being tortured for her captor's amusement.

Ravenna's precog abilities aren't in doubt. Bronse rescues her and there's a skirmish where her warning serves him well. His attraction to her from his dreams and her fascination with him explode when they finally meet in the flesh. It was bothersome to me that this cool under pressure, military-to-the-bone man would lose control of himself the way Bronse kept doing when he was with Ravenna. On the other side, Ravenna's a generally clear-thinking woman, forced to be the leader of the Chosen Ones and to do what's best for them. Even when she was working out a way to be with Bronse - and he was being a horse's rear about it - she was thinking of them too.

There was less time devoted to world-building here than I'd expected. Some space was given to explaining the three-planet system, the basics of the IM and a little bit of those peeyoo, peeyoo weapons. Each team member got a little bit of background, the most being Masin "Lasher" Morse, Bronse's second-in-command. The Chosen Ones also were profiled a bit, although the powers of a few were left unsaid. Ravenna's sixteen year-old sister Ophelia, the healer, has already formed an attachment to Lasher and unless her book is way, way off in the distance, his won't be anytime soon either I think.

This started as a lot of new series do - not necessarily with a bang and not with a whimper - but still on the loud end of things. I liked the setup of Frank's world here and I like the characters she's put in it. Bronse and Ravenna's story may not have completely captivated me, but it interested me enough that I'll be likely to pick up the second book in spite of my aversion to futuristic romances. This ended on a little cliffhanger, small enough that it won't be irritating to anyone not interested in reading more but will be a nice teaser to someone who is.

I had not read Jacquelyn Frank before picking up SEDUCE ME IN DREAMS, but I'm always on the look out for a new SF Romance read. This one didn't disappoint. Bronse is a sexy and powerful leading man, even if he does say goofy things like "By the Great Being!" Ravenna is a nice complement to him, though I didn't feel as close to her character as Bronse's--not sure if the constant head-hopping wouldn't allow me to get into her POV or if when I finally could get into it, I was yanked into another character's head. The head-hopping was my biggest concern with the book (and the interchangeable use of first and last name and call sign), but it wasn't enough to keep me from reading it in a couple of days.

Franks' world and characters prompted the five star rating from me. The sex was great, too. Lasher may have been my favorite character, so I hope we'll get to see a book mainly about him later. In fact, I haven't been as excited about an upcoming release as I am about SEDUCE ME IN FLAMES, her next installment in the Three Worlds universe.

Since reading DREAMS, I've started on Franks' Nightwalker series, reigniting my interest in paranormal romance, but I'm still waiting patiently for FLAMES.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 33 reviews  3.5 out of 5 stars