The Dreamer Trilogy

As a huge fan of The Raven Boys series and of the author Maggie Stiefvater I was very excited to visit the world of a side series, The Dreamer Trilogy, which covers the story of Ronan Lynch and his brothers. 

Here is how the publisher described the action in Book #1, Call Down the Hawk --

The dreamers walk among us . . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming -- they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives -- they will sleep forever if their dreamers die.

And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all.

Ronan Lynch is a dreamer. He can pull both curiosities and catastrophes out of his dreams and into his compromised reality.

Jordan Hennessy is a thief. The closer she comes to the dream object she is after, the more inextricably she becomes tied to it.

Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter. Her brother was a dreamer . . . and a killer. She has seen what dreaming can do to a person. And she has seen the damage that dreamers can do. But that is nothing compared to the destruction that is about to be unleashed . . .

In the Raven Boys series readers learn that Ronan is a dreamer but it is not really clear what that means in terms of responsibility/irresponsibility. In Call Down the Hawk we learn there is a much, much darker side to the continuation of the Raven Boys story.

I read Call Down the Hawk in March of 2020. Hmm. Remember what our world was like in March of 2020? Is it any wonder that I never wrote a review of a book that was dealing with a very dark theme? Here is what I said on my Goodreads page about the book:

A welcome return to characters met in the Raven Boys series. Ronan's friends are away, Adam at college, Ganzy and Blue on a year-long road trip. His brothers live in DC but something is happening with Matthew, who is spacier than ever. In fact there is something happening everywhere and it is dark and foreboding. Darker than the Raven Boys and the first book in a trilogy, I worry how dark the sequel will be. Eek

I meant to read Mister Impossible as soon as it was published in May of 2021. But our personal dark-themed world was still in full force and I put off reading it until September of this year. Three years distance from the first book was too long and I could barely remember the details of the first book. I should have stopped and reread Call Down the Hawk but I didn't. I just bumbled along hoping to figure out what was happening by contextual clues. In my Goodreads review I mentioned how unique the plot was. This is how the publisher described Mister Impossible, the second book in the trilogy:

Do the dreamers need the ley lines to save the world . . . or will their actions end up dooming the world?

As Ronan, Hennessy, and Bryde try to make dreamers more powerful, the Moderators are closing in, sure that this power will bring about disaster.

Like all middle books or movies of trilogies, the action ends on a bummer note... one could even call it a catastrophic note. This time I decided to not wait another three years before reading the last book, The Greywaren (published in October 2022), and checked it out immediately from my library's on-line resource.

The Greywaren provides a lot of back story to the Lynch family:

This is the story of the Lynch family.

Niall and Mór escaped their homeland for a new start, and lost themselves in what they found.

Declan has grown up as the responsible son, the responsible brother - only to find there is no way for him to keep his family safe.

Ronan has always lived on the edge between dreams and waking ... but now that edge is gone, and he is falling.

Matthew has been the happy child, the brightest beam. But rebellion beckons, because it all feels like an illusion now.

This world was not made for such a family - a family with the power to make a world and break it. If they cannot save each other or themselves, we are all doomed.

The war between dreams and reality intensifies... with Ronan at its center.

I'm delighted to report that the end-of-the-world is averted and like all good stories, it ends with a wedding.

For fans of the Raven Boys series and of Maggie Stiefvater. I highly recommend this trilogy, but don't space out your reading like I did. Read each book one after the other, after the other. You'll want to anyway. I listened to all three books in the audio format. I love the narration done on the all the audiobooks by Will Patton. In fact, at the end of the audiobook, Maggie Stiefvater interviews Will Patton about what it was like for him to read over 60 hours of her books. If you've never heard him narrate a book, he has a very gravelly, deep voice which is perfect for the creepy, atmospheric vibe that the stories demand.

-Anne