Introduction

She meets the man of her dreams in her dreams.

Fiona Abry excels at keeping busy, running her family’s Swiss watch company, and guarding her heart. She’s so busy she doesn’t have time for a vacation much less a love life.

But then she’s given a family heirloom rumored to let you dream your greatest desire.

Suddenly, Fiona is spending her nights on a tiny tropical island in a completely different life.

She’s married. She has two kids. She lives in a colorful cottage on the beach.

This dream life is so different from her hectic, busy life in the city that Fiona decides to live her dreams to the fullest.

Swimming in the turquoise sea. Picnics under palms. Star-gazing on the beach. It’s a slow, seductive dream life that conveniently stays in her dreams.

But after kisses and confessions and long nights on the beach, Fiona starts to fall hard for her dream husband and her dream life.

But what happens when opening yourself to love means falling for a life that isn’t real and a man who doesn’t exist?

Because in the end, it’s not fate, it’s just a dream.

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Excerpt

MCCORMICK DIDN’T CHANGE MY LIFE RIGHT AWAY. I DIDN’T
fall in love with him at first sight.
Instead it was a gradual shedding of being, a chipping
away of what was, until my life was something entirely new
and unrecognizable. It was a gradual thing, like the flow of
the gentle tide washing over a softly sanded golden beach.
At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m lying. I often lie
to myself when I’m awake and feeling generous.
But when I’m dreaming? Well, we don’t lie in dreams,
do we?
Everyone knows that dreams are where we tell ourselves
the truth. All our hidden desires, all our yearnings, all our
fears—they come out in dreams, don’t they? In dreams we
can fly, we can defeat dragons, we can go back in time, we can
see our loved ones who are dead and gone, we can talk to a
crowd while naked on a stage, and we can even fall in love.
In dreaming we do all the magical, wondrous things we
are afraid to do in waking life.
Falling in love was always my fear. If you ask my therapist,
she’ll tell you it’s because I have abandonment issues. If you
ask me, it’s because love isn’t worth the hurt.
It’s just like Lake Geneva in early summer, still freezing,
turn-your-lips-blue cold. My brother Daniel always dives in,
splashing frigid frothy water across the coarse sand, laughing
at me, “Come on, Fi! You’ll get used to it!” He teases that soon
my fingers and toes will go numb and I’ll stop feeling the
pain of the cold and enjoy the swim.
Mila always joins him (since age two, in her Puddle
Jumpers and hot-pink cozzie) because she adores her uncle
and would follow him to the moon. They splash in the
shallows, shivering and pink-cheeked, while I perch on the
old tree swing beneath the great plane tree, digging my feet
into the cool, shaded sand, watching over them. To me the
pleasure of a swim isn’t worth the blue lips, the numb fingers
and toes, or the icy bite that nips into your blood and seeps
into your bones. It’s a bit like love. Not worth the pain.
I’d rather stay safe on the sandy shore than dive into the
turbulent waters.
That’s what I believed for a long, long time.
And then, I didn’t.
Whether it happened in an instant or whether it was an
ebb and flow that washed away everything I knew to be true?
Well, that’s a matter of opinion.
My mum always claimed that someday all my dreams
would come true. I always quipped, “I don’t want my dreams
to come true. I’d rather stay in real life, thank you very
much.”
But that was before I had dreams that were worth fighting
for.
It was before Christmas Eve, before the gunshot, before
Max proposed, before Buttercup gave me the watch, and
before I dreamed.
Now I have one single prayer.
One prayer that crashes against the shore of my heart,
beating out a single, desperate plea.
Dream.
Dream.
Dream.
Let me dream of him.
One more time.
... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

From the author:

Could you fall in love with a man in your dreams?

If you could travel in time, would you? What would you do?

How did Fiona’s childhood impact her adult relationships?

Would you marry your best friend in a platonic relationship?

Where would you prefer to live, a city or a small island?

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