Title: Dreamland

Author: Nancy Bilyeau

Publisher: Lume Book 2020

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 386

Rating: 2/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Ebook

The year is 1911 when twenty-year-old heiress Peggy Batternberg is invited to spend the summer in America’s Playground.

The invitation to Coney Island is unwelcome. Despite hailing from one of America’s richest families, Peggy would much rather spend the summer working at the Moonrise Bookstore than keeping up appearances with New York City socialites and her snobbish, controlling family.

But soon it transpires that the hedonism of Coney Island affords Peggy the freedom she has been yearning for, and it’s not long before she finds herself in love with a troubled pier-side artist of humble means, whom the Batternberg patriarchs would surely disapprove of.

Disapprove they may, but hidden behind their pomposity lurks a web of deceit, betrayal, and deadly secrets. And as bodies begin to mount up amidst the sweltering clamor of Coney Island, it seems the powerful Batternbergs can get away with anything… even murder.

Wow that was disappointing. I was expecting a bit of The Night Circus tinged with The Great Gatsby. Instead, I got a meandering story of an unlikable heroine and her horrid family as they spend a summer by Coney Island. Not at Coney Island, but Coney Island. The Dreamland amusement park only has a few appearances in the novel, none very memorable. The author doesn’t take much time to describe the people or the scenery leaving me with very vague impressions. I was thoroughly bored by most of the book. It really only picks up int the last 20% or so when Peggy decides to solve the string of murders. But even then, I knew who the murderer was and didn’t really care. It was just boring…

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