Review: The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett

Rating: ★★★★★ Title: The Nightmare Affair Series: The Arkwell Academy #1 Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy Paranormal Format: E-Book Publisher: Tor Teen Publication Date: March 5, 2013 Copy Provided By: Netgalley     Sixteen-year-old Dusty Everhart breaks into houses late at night, but not because she’s a criminal. No, she’s a Nightmare. Literally. Being the only Nightmare at Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for magickind, and living in the shadow of her mother’s infamy, is hard enough. But when Dusty sneaks into Eli Booker’s house, things get a whole lot more complicated. He’s hot, which means sitting on his chest and invading his dreams couldn’t get much more embarrassing. But it does. Eli is dreaming of a murder. Then Eli’s dream comes true. Now Dusty has to follow the clues—both within Eli’s dreams and out of them—to stop the killer before more people turn up dead. And before the killer learns what she’s up to and marks her as the next target.

Review

The Nightmare Affair is a book I've had for quite sometime but for whatever reason I never decided to read it. Boy was I missing out! I started The Nightmare Affair thinking I'd read a chapter or two before putting it down for the evening. Nope, I read the whole book in one afternoon. I loved the idea of a teenage girl who fed off the nightmares of people. Of course poor Dusty never imagined that the nightmare she was watching would turn out to be true. Nor could Dusty ever imagine that the boy having that nightmare would become vital in helping her find out the mystery behind it all.

I loved Dusty she wasn't the typical heroine one would expect. Dusty was awkward yet charming, stubborn yet complacent. She was everything I could hope for and more. I honestly wish more female character were written like her. The only downside to Dusty was her inability to believe she was special. Dusty was very intimidated by all the other magical creatures around her and never truly believed she belonged at Arkwell. Of course it didn't help that her mother had quite the reputation and that was projected onto Dusty by those around her. Still, I would of liked her to gain a bit more confidence in her abilities without always second guessing herself.

I also really loved Selene and Eli. Selene is a siren on a mission. I love that she feels so passionate about Sirens not being pranced around as sex symbols and it was really great that she truly was a good friend to Dusty. I kept expecting a twist where she'd turn out backstabbing Dusty and was pleasantly surprised this was not the case. I also liked Eli, yeah it was obvious him and Dusty would wind up together but I'm happy it was done gradually. No insta-love which was so refreshing.

However, while the characters from The Nightmare Affair were a highlight I have to give props to the Author for creating a magical world that stood on its own two feet. I love the concept of The Will that keeps magical creatures in line and the cops being werewolves. I also loved the mythology weaved into the story. Merlin yes that Merlin plays a part as well as Excalibur!! I mean how cool is that.

Now as much as I loved The Nightmare Affair I was a bit disappointed that 3/4 of the way in it became glaringly obvious who at least one of the bad guys was. I would of been shocked had it not been but sadly nope I was right. I did however like the reason they gave for how the character pulled off the deception. It totally made sense and caught me by surprise so that was at least nice to see.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Nightmare Affair. If a sequel existed at this very moment I'd probably jump right into reading it. The 367 page length of the first book was simply not enough!! I want more and I want it now. I highly recommend picking this one up and giving it a go. If you like great writing, mystery and plenty of magical mayhem then you'll love The Nightmare Affair. That being said, I'll be rating The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett ★★★★★.

Want to learn more? Then check out the book trailer below!