Dreams of Falling
by Karen White once again proves why readers have fallen in
love with her books. Blending together friendships, betrayal,
loyalty, and forgiveness over three generations makes for
a gripping plot. At the heart of the mystery are the secrets
each character is hiding.
The story can be considered anti-Cinderella. White explains,
“I wanted to have it realistic where dreams do not always
come true. I wanted to show it is not the end of the world
if they don’t. Another door will open, and that everyone
should have a Plan B. I had the Tree of Dreams, a moss-draped
oak on the banks of the North Santee River. The three girls,
Ceecee, Margaret, and Bitty, wrote their dreams on ribbons
and placed it into the tree's trunk, including the most important
one: ‘Friends forever, come what may.’ I personally
have had really bizarre dreams, which my daughter tries to
interpret. My imagination and the desire to learn more about
dreams is why I decided to put this in. But the story is not
about nocturnal dreams, but the dreams of the three girls,
what they hoped for the future.”
This is a story about three generations of women and is told
from the perspective of Ceecee, Ivy, and Larkin. The main
story goes from the present day (2010) to 1951 flashbacks.
Set in Georgetown, South Carolina, the story begins as Larkin
returns home to help locate her missing mother, Ivy, and realizes
there is a dark secret centering around the death of one of
Ceecee’s best friends from high school. Margaret, Ceecee,
and Bitty have just graduated from high school in 1951 with
all their dreams ahead of them. But they are shattered when
Margaret finds she is an unwed mother who lost her fiancé
while fighting in the Korean War. Years later her daughter
Ivy has a similar experience when she loses her recently married
husband who fought in Vietnam. Now the third generation, Larkin,
must piece together what happened during those turbulent years.
The mystery comes into play as the fifty-year secrets are
slowly unveiled. “I wrote how each character had a different
reason for keeping them. It presented the family and friend
dynamics. Maybe they were used to save a friendship or to
protect those they loved. I do not think people who keep secrets
always have bad intentions. The mystery is what happened between
the friends. To emphasize this point I put in the quote, ‘It’s
easy to be kind and giving and loyal when you have everything.
But the mark of a true friend is when everything is taken
away and you’re still kind, giving, and loyal.’”
White masterfully crafts a story that has deep emotion, a
riveting mystery, and surprising twists. Readers will keep
the pages turning to find out what happens to all the characters.
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