In the interest of making an important introduction, let’s start with something everyone who visits this site has seen before – the cover, by Ruben de Vela:
The red-haired young lady you’re seeing is Sarah Brannigan, our protagonist, and this is the picture that I think most closely captures my mental picture of her.
Sarah’s life has fallen apart in recent years. She and her husband of twenty years have divorced, ending what was once a fairy tale love story. Now she finds herself in her mid-forties working two minimum-wage jobs just to pay for a single cheap room. To get away from it all, she walks the City, looking for its hidden wonders. One day, she falls asleep on a bench after a day of walking in the hot sun at Coney Island, and when she wakes up, she is…this. Tawny Kitaen circa Whitesnake.
Better still, Coney Island is the kind of summer wonderland that it was always supposed to be, its geography a mix of the best of its past and present:
Best of all, she meets this fellow:
(Pictures by the marvelous MJ Barros)
This is the Dream Boy, the perfect boyfriend she always dreamed of as a teenager, back when hair metal was all the rage. He is the perfect combination of exciting and gallant, dancing the night away and mussing her up under the boardwalk before walking her to the train and seeing her on her way.
Naturally, she tries to recapture this wonderful dream, and when she finds out she can, she just as naturally comes back as often as she can. But one day, everything goes wrong again, and when she comes back, she finds herself in a nightmare.
Only then, when she’s passed through the crucible of nightmare, does she learn the truth about Dream Boy, and the truth about the dreams.
(That last picture was by the MASman, btw, and while Sarah’s appearance in that one is farthest from my original intentions, it’s still awesome, and everyone sees your characters a different way.)
If you want to get the whole story of Sarah Brannigan, the Dream Boy, and the Dream of Coney Island, you’re in luck. Dreams of the Boardwalk is available for download or in dead tree format at Amazon. Get yourself a copy!