The Dream Runners Book Review

Once again, I’ve had a period of silence on this blog, and it might have to continue for a while longer. Life threw some new hits at me lately: one medical, and a few financial/home related. It’s really hard to know what to say here. I’ve had some blog ideas I was really excited about, and then the anxiety and OCD were triggered again by another problem arising, and I lost all train of thought on them. It is getting really frustrating, to put it mildly.

But…I couldn’t neglect telling you that I just finished my dear friend Shveta Thakrar’s new book, The Dream Runners, and it is a lush and immersive delight! The world is so unique and so unlike anything else I had ever read, and although it is a standalone novel, it feels very kin to her first novel, Star Daughter. Not a twin, but lovely siblings, each with their own glow and beauty.

The Dream Runners is the story of Tanvi, a teenager who steals dreams from mortals and bottles them up to sell to the Naga, a race from Hindu mythology of snake people (their culture and world is made lusciously vivid by Shveta*), who can’t dream themselves and are fascinated by the escapism of human dreams. It’s the only way for them to forget their exile as a people, and their war with the Garuda, eagle-like beings.

Dream runners trade away their emotions at a young age, and go through life in a sort of fog-like state, but lately Tanvi is starting to wake up. And Venkat, the sensitive young human apprentice of the Nagini dream-smith, is starting to notice.

Shveta’s book comes out on June 28th, and I so recommend you give it a read.

*I can’t bring myself to be fancy professional and use her last name in this review. She’s too special to me, lol