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Blue is for Nightmares
By Laurie Faria Stolarz
Llewellyn Publications
Reviewed by: Peggy Tibbetts
Secrets -- there seem to be lots of them at Hillcrest boarding school. Even
Stacey has one. Since the start of the school year, she dreads sleep
because she's been having nightmares about her roommate, Drea. But that's
not her secret. The real reason she performs a ritual with candles and sage
before bed is not so much to make the nightmares go away, but to make the
bedwetting stop. Yup, that's right. In the midst of these nightmares where
she's desperately trying to find Drea, 16-year old Stacey wets the bed.
Combine that horribly disgusting secret with the fact that the last time
she ignored her nightmares, a little girl wound up dead, and you've got a
real sense of urgency within a carefully crafted maze of a plot.
You see, Stacey is descended from a long line of witches, or Wiccans -- as
in followers of the Wicca religion. She knows card reading, potions, and
spells, passed down from her grandmother. And she knows the nightmares and
the bedwetting are happening for a reason. Even the cards spell out trouble
for Drea, who eventually confesses to getting strange, anonymous emails,
phone calls, and messages. So Stacey knows she has to pay attention to her
dreams, in spite of the miserable bedwetting. When the same lilies that
appear in her nightmares show up in the girls' bathroom, Stacey and Drea
know that the stalker's not out there somewhere, but right nearby -- in
school. Yet their attempt to find out the stalker's identity with the help
of their friends, only leads them in circles. In the middle of it all,
another student is murdered. From then on, Stacey's nightmares take on an
even greater urgency. And everyone's paying attention. Which is a good
thing when it comes to keeping Drea safe, but a bad thing when it comes to
the bedwetting.
As is the nature of secrets, they are eventually revealed, and it seems
like even their closest friends have something to hide when it comes to the
unfortunate dead student. Could someone they eat lunch with and gossip
with, someone they sit next to in class, actually be capable of murder?
Through Stacey's spellbinding race to save Drea's life, she unravels the
string of secrets and understands everything -- even the bedwetting.
Lovers of the hocus-pocus, Harry Potter style of witchcraft might be
disappointed. But lovers of the spiritual side of Wicca will be in heaven.
Into this real life mystery, Laurie Stolarz weaves an education about true
witchcraft combined with a lesson in dream interpretation. She truly has a
gift for lifting witchcraft out of the shadow of the broomstick and into
the modern world. "Blue is for Nightmares" cast a spell on me.
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