TITLE: Dream ‘til Monday
AUTHOR: Allison Cassatta
GENRE: Contemporary
LENGTH: Novel (206 pages)
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press(August 15th, 2014)
HEAT LEVEL: Low
HEART RATING: ♥♥♥♥♥4.5Hearts
BLURB: When Hollywood comes a-knockin, a young, small-town Mississippi photographer named Sawyer Taylor packs his bags and heads to the West Coast. He’s been hired to photograph for a romantic comedy in San Francisco and looks at the opportunity as a chance to rebuild and reclaim his life. But a quick, drunken hand job behind a bar in the Castro might prove a horrible mistake.
Film director Miles Eisenberg isn’t a man who wants to commit. He has a daughter who means the world to him at home, and he worries over how his decisions might affect her. He comes up with a million good reasons not to give Sawyer a second look but sometimes the heart is determined to love, and the brain can’t convince it otherwise.
His affair with Sawyer becomes a whirlwind romance worthy of the silver screen, but life doesn’t always imitate at, and imperfect heroes don’t always get their happy endings.
PRODUCT LINK: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=5355
ISBN: 978-1-62798-981-7
REVIEWER: Prime
REVIEW: Small town boy/photographer is hired by a Hollywood director and moves out to San Francisco to start the job. It sounds like the basis of a clichéd story, but that would be where you are wrong – or at least I was wrong. Sweet is too inadequate a word to use to describe this story. It is sweetness overload but in a good way, not the diabetic coma way.
The story isn’t over the top with melodrama. Neither does the plot fall flat. It just sweet, nice and a very well written romance that also feels realistic. The characters are also great. One of the minor characters, Martin, is kind of like the angel on the shoulder, trying to beat some sense into our main characters, particularly when the main characters start showing signs of melodrama.
Hollywood director, Miles, is dedicated to his job and his daughter. The daughter, Zoe, is also a very adorable, but minor, character, as are many seven-year olds. His job and his daughter are the two known factors in his life, he wants to raise his daughter right and he wants his current movie to be a great success. I get the feeling that Miles is afraid of change. Sawyer is the small town photographer, whose work has recently been discovered and pushed out into the world for the art scene. He has a demon or two that he left behind (leaving him wary), as well as a BFF who is all exuberance and advice (another wonderful character).
Ultimately, both Miles and Sawyer are afraid to put their hearts on the line and fall in love
This isn’t a “life styles of the rich and famous” type of novel. Instead, the characters are, thankfully, more down to earth. As I said, this well-written romance feels realistic. So real, in fact, there were a couple of times I wanted to slap some sense into both Miles and Sawyer, albeit at different points of the story.
One thing that leaves me confused is the title of the book, Dream ‘til Monday. I completely understand the “dream” part of the title, but struggle with the Monday. It may just be me being completely dense, but this isn’t some fleeting weekend romance, leaving me wonder if that’s the reason behind the title. I’m just having a couple of problems reconciling the title to the story. I honestly didn’t know what to think when I read the title before reading the blurb. However, as I said, it’s not an issue, but rather just an observation. Just sit back and enjoy the story!
* I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through http://mmgoodbookreviews.wordpress.com *