I’m an avid reader and this had me guessing until the very end. I’m still guessing in fact!
It opens with Shay Baynes who is a comic book artist who's about to have her first real work published. It's a very big deal.
Shay is a very independent woman, having her own house, job, and knows how to take care of herself. What seems to be a common theme is that every man around her seems to only look at a certain type of girl, see Shay as the not "hot" type. Shay’s frustration is quite understandable seeing as every guy around her simply wants to win her away from another guy treating her like a trophy rather than a person, not to mention that most men have a problem with women taking care of themselves at all. First, there's her on-again off-again boyfriend Aiden. He constantly goes off and comes home not telling anyone where he’s going is gone for months and months at a time with no way to get in touch with him and yet he has the nerve to profess his love to her constantly.
Being "rooster" blocked is her other ex-boyfriend, although mostly good guy Eli. Eli is an assistant district attorney in the kind of guy you do bring home to mom. He's seemingly thoughtful, caring, has a great job, and is polite. His only caveats is he’s an alcoholic. Not an abusive one, he just has a problem with drinking. Although he tries to get help this seems to be (at least for a short while) his only drawback. Aiden, the seemingly bad boy, rough-around-the-edges type, seems to only care about Shay as far as Eli is concerned-until the book goes to his point of view. For Aiden to constantly be professing his love he needs keep his eyes off of everything that has boobs because actions speak lower than words. If you love someone and want them to believe and trust you, then you don’t gawk at everything else.
Eli seems to be caught up with some slutty stripper, but don’t judge a book by its cover because you never know who someone might be. Is Eli covering for someone else, or is there something deeper going on with Eli & the stripper? Eli also needs to come clean about his stripper 'friend', which is what he seems to have done in a note he’s written that to Shay that she has yet to read.
There's the misogynistic boss who is the epitome of the trashy 70s style porn director and only cares about making money. So much so that he releases an alternate cover to Shay's first issue, making her look even more like a criminal.
Then there's Gabriel, the hot love interest. Unfortunately for Shay he's only in her dreams (and therefore further inspiration for her comic). Or, is he??
The book does go from multiple points of view so you tend to get everyone’s direct thoughts and it gives you a different perspective on who may or may not have Shay’s best interests at heart. When Shay is on the hook for a murder she may or may not have committed officer glass wants to put her away convinced she’s the perpetrator simply because her comic book sketches directly correlate with the crime scene. Shea gets her inspiration from her nightmares which have occurred since her twin sister and mother have both passed. The book gives the illusion that there may or may not be something paranormal at work and the reader is caught between trying to figure out what is real and what is a dream. Seemingly, everything Shay dreams seems to happen in real life whether she’s there or not. Is she predicting the future? Is she sleepwalking in committing these crimes unbeknownst even to herself? Is the Spectre real or is it something else? There are hints to ghost/demon possession but again the book switches viewpoints you kind of ask yourself is Shay losing her mind or are several people losing their minds?
What the author has done was create a world where you don’t know up from down, left from right, reality from dreams, and it’s a real who done it. Most books I can figure out the ending to however this one has me baffled from both Eli and Aiden's points of view each one seems to really love her but have their own secrets. Do you trust a man who wants to marry you but doesn’t stick around long enough for you to be able to trust him or do you trust the one that’s always been there but you find out all of a sudden isn't who you thought you knew?
How does one get out of being accused of murder when you are drawings from your dream looked exactly like the crime scenes as if you were there? What you do when all fingers point to you because you do not have proof otherwise? Shays’s retired cop father and Eli being an assistant district attorney were able to get shape off the hook for now. But at what cost?
I’m extremely anxious as to what’s really going on with the specter, Gabriel from Shays dreams, the voices she hears, and Eli and Aiden's constant "rooster" fight and their points of view – how do they really feel?
Diving into book 2 now!
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