Dream Country: A Nashville Psychic Mystery Book Review

Dream Country is about a woman, Dilly Renfro, who has these precognitive dreams about the future. This is the result of a gunshot wound she encountered from a store robbery the year before. With a new found point of view on life, Dilly doesn’t have any reserves. She even comes out about her lesbian lifestyle and precognitive dreams to her family, which might add to the chaos to her already notorious life.

Staying out of the spotlight isn’t a choice for her since her father, a popular country singer; Doyle Renfro is in the middle of a painful lawsuit between his other two children, Dilly’s twin sister Loretta and older brother Porter. If that wasn’t enough for the Renfro family, Pearl Emery, the recently acclaimed love child of Doyle was murdered. Dilly had a precognitive dream that Pearl was murdered so she decides that she will use her dreams to help solve the case. Believing in her dreams is the one thing Dilly knows she can do, but how will she get the skeptical authorities to believe them too? Her dreams lead her in the right direction every time. She will find the murderer even if her life is at stake.

                 Dan Jewell wrote a great novel. It is a definite page turner with twists that keep you guessing the entire book.  His characters were unique and multidimensional. Not only did they complete the story, they had backstories that gave the novel depth. Jewell had a lengthy list of characters to fill the team that solved the murder of Pearl Emery. The way Jewell displayed them throughout the book allowed for ample support for Dilly and her dreams. Jewell didn’t write the novel in first person POV but allowed you to see through the eyes of most of the characters. Tyrell Jefferson, Lester “Cowboy” Cooper, Georgia Emery, and Harry Hardin were the ones that told the story. From this writing style the reader is able to see how the story pans out from multiple angles. The chapters were separated into each of the character’s POV to maximize how the murder case’s evidence and facts were discovered.

                Dilly had a few dreams throughout the novel that allowed for reader interpretation. They were cryptic enough to allow the reader to imagine how to novel would continue. Even though the dreams gave details of how the chapter would develop, they always ended differently than one thought.

                Jewell had constructed this book into eight sections, each to depict the following days of the murder. This makes the reading easy to follow and allows the reader to focus on the time frame as well. One setback from Jewell was the way he managed to introduce each character at the beginning of the sections. It was unnecessary to re-introduce characters that the readers already know. This is just a minor drawback, but an easy fix if wanted. Other than that, this book was a great read that many people will enjoy.