A Dream Within A Dream: Forever Found Blog Tour: Review + Giveaway

Welcome to my stop on the FOREVER FOUND blog tour! Today I'll be sharing my review of the novella - and don't forget to enter the awesome giveaway! To follow the rest of the tour, check out the schedule at the bottom of the post.

Forever Found (Neverland Lost #2)

Author: Nazarea Andrews

Genre: New Adult Fantasy/Retelling

Release Date: December 30, 2014

Description:

Losing Gwen was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to survive. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love her.

But finding her was never about that. And now that I have found her–now that she knows the truth about me and the Island, I have to trust her to believe. Because her leaving me didn’t just destroy me–its killing Neverland.

I need her to love me. But we all need her to believe again.

Peter Pan has grown up and found the girl who left–but the stakes are higher than ever in this romantic conclusion to the story begun in Girl Lost.

Forever Found is the exciting conclusion to the New Adult fantasy Neverland Lost series. It picks up where the first book left off - with our main character, Gwen Barrie, questioning her sanity once again. After meeting and falling for the gorgeous and dangerous Peter at college - who reminds her more and more each day of "the Boy" she believed she met and spent months with on an island in the middle of the ocean - and with these reminders of the Boy come memories that are getting more vivid and detailed the longer she's with Peter. She's spent the last seven years of her life coming to terms with the fact that the island, the Boy, her memories, were only coping mechanisms made up by her brain in order to protect her from the trauma of seeing her parents murdered. After all this time - all the therapy, meds, time in mental institutes, and the hard work of putting her sanity back together - Gwen finds herself unable to tell the difference between reality and delusion once again. But what if they weren't separate things? What if she didn't imagine the island and the Boy? What if they were real?

I haven't read a Peter Pan retelling before this, and I have to admit that it was a fun and intriguing twist on the story. This is a novella and the conclusion to the series, so you really need to read the first book in order to have any idea of what's going on or you'll be absolutely lost. In this book, the story is told from Peter's point of view - which I LOVED! The first book was told from Gwen's point of view, which gave us a great inside look at her character and all the different aspects - thoughts, fears, dreams, emotions, desires, etc. - and made her a fantastic main character who was easy to identify with right from the start. The author makes a huge switch by changing to Peter's point of view in this book. We already feel like we know Gwen on a personal level and we've been beside her throughout the events of the first book. By using Peter's point of view for this book, all of the reader's previous thoughts about the different happenings and things going on with Gwen are turned upside down. We now get to see inside Peter's mind - an inside view of his fears, dreams, hopes, emotions, thoughts, etc. I think it gives the reader a fuller view of the relationship between Gwen and Peter as well as the story as a whole, because we get to see it from both sides.

As with the first book, the plot took a little bit to pick up and suck me into the author's world. But once the pace quickened and things heated up - I was hooked until the very end. Aside from that one opinion, the writing continued to be well done with great imagery and descriptions. There were definitely some steamy scenes in the books between Gwen and Peter, so be ready for those (not that I'm complaining in the least!). I loved watching Gwen and Peter grow both as separate characters and in their relationship with each other. The author put an original spin on the well known story and added a lot of swoonworthy romance, which added up to one hot and romantic retelling. I definitely recommend this book (and series) to readers who enjoy fantasies as well as those who enjoy retellings.

Check out the first book:

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Girl Lost (Neverland Lost #1)

Author: Nazarea Andrews

Genre: New Adult Fantasy/Retelling

Release Date: May 1, 2014

Description:

Northern was supposed to be a fresh start—a place where people didn’t know who I was or how I had spent years in and out of mental institutes. People didn't know about my parents death or the island no one heard of. But when Peter sits next to me in lit class, I can’t stop the memories, and I don’t want to. He looks too much like the boy from the island, and despite my best intentions, coaxes my secrets from me.

He’s gorgeous, irresistible, a little mad, and completely lost—we are a pair of broken cogs in a world neither of us truly fits into. He is somehow gentle and fierce, heartbreaking in his devotion and savage in his defense.

When Belle, his best friend, shows up, pale and lovely and sick, Peter pulls away from me, a startling withdrawal. It’s a relationship that scares and confuses me. She is at times warm and friendly, and other times is violent and unpredictable.

Peter says that he wants me, but refuses to let himself get close. And there are secrets, surrounding both of us, that border on nightmares. As the memories close in, as Belle gets sicker and more violent, I’m torn between what is true and what I believe, and what this magical boy knows about my mysterious past.

Nazarea Andrews is an avid reader and tends to write the stories she wants to read. She loves chocolate and coffee almost as much as she loves books, but not quite as much as she loves her kids. She is the author of the University of Branton series, Neverland Found series, and Edge of the Falls. She lives in south Georgia with her husband, daughters, and overgrown dog. You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter.