The Living Room


The Living Room
Robert Whitlow
Thomas Nelson

Amy Clarke’s dreams are coming true—and that’s the problem.
Legal secretary by day, romance novelist by night, Amy Clarke lives with a precious secret. For years, she has traveled to a holy place in her dreams—a sublime place she calls the Living Room. When she awakes, her faith and energy are supernaturally restored. And when she dreams, she receives vibrant inspiration for her novels.
As she begins to write her third book, the nature of her dreams shifts. Gone are the literary signposts. Instead, her dreams are studded with scenes that foreshadow real life. Before long, the scenes begin to spill over into her waking hours too.
As Amy becomes entangled in a high stakes case at work, her visions take on a dark hue—implicating someone dear to her, causing her to question everything. And convincing her to trust someone with his own shadowy secrets.
Things are not always what they seem. But as fiction, dreams, and real life begin to overlap, Amy must stop dreaming and act to prevent tragedy.
Having never read anything by Robert Whitlow before, I wasn't sure to expect. Parts of this book I really enjoyed -especially since it was a change from what I normally read- but there were a few things that bothered me about it. The thing is, the things that bothered me probably wouldn't bother most people. But I'm a very conservative person, so some of Amy and Jeff's lifestyle choices -though certainly more godly than most people- didn't seem to me the best option. Mainly, it was with putting their children in public school. Half of the problems they had with their kids made me think, "good grief, if they just homeschooled their kids, things would be so much better!" A lot people might hate me for that, but really, sending your children to a godless institution for eight hours, five days a week- and then letting them go gallivanting off the rest of the time- really bothered me.

However, the rest of the plot was interesting, and as an author who gets many of her ideas from dreams, that aspect of the story really intrigued me (and to tell the truth, the look at the publishing industry made me so much more grateful that I've decided to self-publish!). I found one plot twist rather predictable- I was expecting it nearly the entire, 400+ page novel- and the story wasn't quite as fast-paced as I thought it would be. However, it was still a nice change for my normal fiction fare, and it kept my interest the entire way through.

Rating: 7 1/2

I received this book for free from booksneeze.com in exchange for my honest review.

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