A review by hmclaughlan
Dreambound by Dan Frey, Dan Frey

4.0

Dreambound by Dan Frey follows father Byron as he searches for his missing daughter, who ran away several months earlier and hasn’t been seen since.
I struggled with how to rate this book, and I’m settling on a 3.5 stars rounded up to 4. It’s listed as a fantasy, but the fantasy aspects don’t truly come into play until around 60% and after. Up until that point, it’s basically an investigative missing persons story revolving around a fictional fantasy novel. It was also hard to embrace as a fantasy because it is written entirely in interview/journal entries/book excerpts. Even once we delve into the truly fantastical elements of the story, it still read like a news article; Given that the main character is a journalist trying to find his missing daughter, this makes sense, but it did take me a while to get on board with this documentary style of writing for a fantasy novel. While I did struggle with some parts of this book, by the end I was fully invested in Byron and his quest to find his daughter.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of Dreambound in exchange for my honest review.