Terri Clark Book Title: Sleepless Publication Date: September 1, 2008 Publisher: HarperTeen ISBN: 9780061375965 Author's Website: http://TerriClarkBooks.com

Description of Book:

Eighteen-year-old Trinity Michaels has the ability to dream walk. It's a power she doesn't want, but it forever alters her life when she's unable to find an abducted teen before she's killed. While Trinity does help police capture the killer, Rafe Stevens, her involvement makes her his next target. Rafe pleads insanity and his convincing performance, aided by his despicable attorney, get him sentenced to a mental institute where a diabolical physician experiments on him. Now Rafe's escaped the sanitarium and he's after Trinity. Like her, he now has a special ability, one that allows him to stalk Trinity through her dreams. If he kills her in her sleep, she'll die for real. To survive she must find him first and the only person willing to help her is Dan Devlin, disillusioned son of the shady lawyer who knowingly aided Rafe in getting away with murder. Can she trust Dan with her safety, not to mention her heart?

About the Author:

Terri Clark feels blessed to demonstrate her passion for young adult fiction as both a teen patron specialist at her library and a YA author. Now she’ll finally be able to shelve her own books in the teen section when her novella, Breaking Up is Hard To Do, comes out in May of ’08 with Houghton Mifflin and her first book, Sleepless, comes out in September of ’08 with HarperTeen. Sleepless, a romantic paranormal, is one of the launch books for HarperTeen’s Scary Beach Reads line. Check out HarperTeens.com for more info.

 

 

Excerpt:

 

Ever heard of lucid dreaming?

 

          It's when you're aware you're dreaming while inside your dream. Like, you're in the middle of some totally nonsensical illusion and your dream-self says, "This is stupid. Wake up!" 

          It's kinda trippy, really.

          Everyone does it subconsciously, on occasion.

          Quacky New Agers even "practice" it by making a conscientious effort before they go to sleep to maintain their cognizance. The idea is they'll somehow achieve divine insight and wisdom by having a waking awareness in their dreams.

          Whatever.

          But me? I've never dreamt any other way. Ever.

          No showing-up-naked-for-school nightmares or missing-an-exam dreams for me.  I don't even get to enjoy lusty fantasies about Jensen Ackles or my secret crushes. Nope.  I dream about real places, real people, real events and I'm always aware I'm dreaming. It's been that way since I was seven. My mom first noticed my prescience after my dad died. She thinks losing him shocked my system so bad it "awakened" this-I hate the words: gift, ability and power, it's more like an aberration. Anyhow, according to Mom, shamans call my skill, dream walking. Is that woo-woo, or what? Call it what you like, it's completely complicated my life. Sometimes I'll even meet people in my dreams right before I meet them in real life. Inevitably, I end up with this awkward sense of "don't I know you?" until I remember, "Oh, yeah. Dream."  Not cool. It's not like I can say, "That's riiiight. I met you last night. In my sleep."

          Think it sounds like I've got some sort of tight super power? Trust me, it's bogus.

          I see things I don't want to see, meet people I'd rather not know exist and hear things that make me feel way older than eighteen and not in a cool, "I'm so mature way."

          Worst of all, this anomaly makes me feel different. Abnormal. Freaky.

          But what can I do? Quit sleeping? Come on, Trinity. Give it up cold turkey. Kick the habit. Just say no! I wish.

          So, I dream.

          Then I do my best to block out the ugly things I learn - against my will, I might add - within my waking nightmares.  

           For instance, I learned that cliquey prom queen Belinda Thaniel ices people with bitchiness not to be ultra-cool, but to keep people at a safe distance. She doesn't want anyone to know about her meth-addicted-mess-of-a-father.

           Come on, how would you deal with knowing that kind of shit?

           I don't.

           Or rather I didn't.

           But each time I learned someone's dark secret and did nothing to-I don't know-illuminate it, a part of me shriveled up and died. I got harder. Darker. I mean, if you think the media desensitizes you to violence and horrors, try hopping into my head for an episode or two. I've been seeing these bleak snapshots of people's lives for as long as I can remember.

          But nothing compared to Kiri.

          He murdered her.

          And I'd been drowning ever since.

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