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by Rita Woods
From Hurston/Wright Legacy Award-winning author Rita Woods, The Last Dreamwalker tells the story of two women, separated by nearly two centuries yet inextricably linked by the Gullah-Geechee Islands off the coast of South Carolina―and their connection to a mysterious and extraordinary gift passed from generation to generation.
In the wake of her mother's passing, Layla Hurley unexpectedly reconnects with her mother's sisters, women she hasn't been allowed to speak to, or of, in years.
Her aunts reveal to Layla that a Gullah-Geechee island off the shore of South Carolina now belongs to her. As Layla digs deeper into her mother's past and the mysterious island's history, she discovers that the terrifying nightmares that have plagued her throughout her life and tainted her relationship with her mother and all of her family, is actually a power passed down through generations of her Gullah ancestors. She is a Dreamwalker, able to inhabit the dreams of others―and to manipulate them.
As Layla uncovers increasingly dark secrets about her family's past, she finds herself thrust into the center of a potentially deadly, decades-old feud fought in the dark corridor of dreams.
The Last Dreamwalker is a gripping, contemporary read about power and agency; family and legacy; and the ways trauma, secrets, and magic take shape across generations.
"Family life is the grounding for a compelling story of strange powers and old secrets." —Kirkus Reviews
"Vivid descriptions and well-developed characters." ―Booklist
"The Last Dreamwalker will pull you headlong into its perilous world, where three generations of women haunted by history take actions in dreams that can save or doom others in daylight. Like her dreamwalking characters, the talented Woods weaves unforgettable, inescapable magic. A triumph." ―Greer Macallister, bestselling author of The Magician's Lie
"Deeply evocative and clings to you like the humid air of the South. It is a creepy, moving tale in which intergenerational trauma reaches out of dreams and makes the waking world a nightmare. I keep thinking about it." ―Mary Robinette Kowal, author of The Calculating Stars
This information about The Last Dreamwalker was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rita Woods was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She received a BS in Microbiology from Purdue University before graduating from Howard University College of Medicine. She completed her training at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska and currently serves as Medical Director of a Wellness Center that provides care for members of one of the largest Trade Unions in the nation.
Rita lives in suburban Chicago with her family, where she also serves as a Trustee on her local library board. She loves magic, books, history, coffee and traveling, not necessarily in that order. She is the author of the award-winning novel, Remembrance.
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