Book Review: Dare to Dream

Book: Dare to Dream by Donna Hill

Source: Library

Rating: 2 stars

Review:

Dare to Dream is about main character Desiree Armstrong who lives in NYC and is an artist. She is in the process of preparing for her first art exhibit. To cover the cost, she signed on with a sponsor Carl Hampton who doesn't seem to understand that they only have a business relationship. He's one of those egotistical jerks who feels as though he's rich and handsome and can get whatever he wants. But Desiree has no interest in him other than as a sponsor. He also gives her assistant and friend Cynthia the creeps because he has stalker written all over him. He also gave off similar bad vibes to Desiree's best friend Rachel.

Aside from Carl annoying Desiree she feels like her life is finally where she wanted it to be even though she's still sort of getting over her ex-fiancé Lincoln Davenport. However, things quickly changed when in the middle of the night her loft/studio caught fire causing her to lose everything and she also nearly lost her life as well.

To try to get over such a devastating loss and try to figure out her next plan for continuing on with her exhibit, Rachel has booked Desiree into The Port a newly opened Bed and Breakfast in Sag Harbor. However, unbeknownst to the both of them, the inn is owned by Desiree's ex Lincoln.

Meanwhile, back in Manhattan Carl is trying his best to try to locate Desiree and even goes to her assistant Cynthia's home to demand she tell him where Desiree is. In his twisted mind he feels that by now Desiree who has nothing should have contacted him or leaned on him for help. To anyone who's not a psycho it would be perfectly clear why she wouldn't contact him.

As Desiree is getting settled in at the B & B she runs into Lincoln while she was taking a walk around the grounds. It's easy to see that they still care for each other but something that happened in the past is still keeping them apart.

Carl continued to try to get in contact with Desiree, he does have a good reason for that. The fire at her loft/studio has been deemed suspicious and he wanted to know if she had seen or heard anything before the fire started. For some reason the investigator thought that perhaps Desiree may have started the fire and it didn't help matters when Cynthia was interviewed and her answers may have inadvertently put even more suspicion on Desiree. Is there a possibility that she set fire to own studio or is someone else to blame?

She got some surprising help from an old sorority sister Allison Wakefield who was an investigative reporter.

I wasn't quite sure what to think of this book because it's obviously a romance book but it also has this mystery surrounding the fire. So I guess I would call this a romantic mystery. The story started out good but it started to lose focus as it went along.

There were things I liked about this story but what initially got on my nerves was that most of the time it had me wondering why Desiree was making herself miserable when she really would have liked to be back together with her ex-fiancé Lincoln Davenport.

And as the story unfolded and I found out the reason why these two were no longer together, all it did was annoy even me. It was such an old and out dated way of thinking that was keeping them apart.

A few things I did like about the story was how the author included historical information about Sag Harbor and I like the easy going writing style which made it a breeze to read. The author did a good job with conveying the danger of the fire and with showing the chemistry between Desiree and Lincoln.

But ultimately there were just too many points of view going on in this story especially near the end and it drifted from being about Desiree to focusing on several different sub plots. It started to feel like I was reading several different stories instead of one. Also, the ending felt rushed.