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Brenda Joyce

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House of Dreams: A Novel (The deWarenne Dynasty Book 5) Kindle Edition

by Brenda Joyce (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.2 66 ratings

Related to: The DeWarenne Dynasty

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New York Times bestselling author Brenda Joyce weaves a spellbinding tale of love and danger that will linger long after the last page is turned. In House of Dreams, two aristocratic families, one English, one Spanish, have been tragically destined to come together time and again over centuries. Cassandra de Warenne spends her days in a quiet English manor, looking after her young niece while her sister Tracey lives the glamorous life of a jet-setter. When Cass meets Tracey's newest conquest, Antonio de la Barca, she isn't prepared for the intense and immediate attraction-an attraction that heralds something deeper, more powerful, and more dangerous than Cass could ever imagine. For the de Warennes and the de la Barcas have a tangled history of horrendous heartbreak, bitter rivalry, and bloodshed that began 450 years ago, with one woman, Isabel, forsaken and betrayed by her family, her lover and her friends. Today, Isabel has summoned the two families together one final time-this time to complete a quest for vengeance from beyond the grave.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

An English estate and a haunted castle in Spain provide scenic backdrops for best-selling Joyce's tale of two sisters, Tracy and Cass de Warenne, in love with a professor of medieval studies, Antonio de la Barca. When the affair between drop-dead gorgeous jet-setter Tracy and Antonio sours, the dashing Spaniard concentrates on Cass, a self-effacing romance novelist with a penchant for history. Strangely enough, their family trees are intertwined, spanning centuries of intrigue, revenge, and mysterious deaths. Once Joyce delivers her characters to Antonio's remote ancestral home, the stage is set for a beautiful ghost to take possession of her unsuspecting victims. Intent on making up for the suffering she endured long ago, Isabel wreaks havoc on the descendants of all whom she counts as enemies. With myriad twists and turns, much bloodshed, and plenty of passionate embraces, Cass and Antonio triumph over the unearthly obstacles threatening their happiness. And Isabel's spirit finds peace at last. Alice Joyce
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Kirkus Reviews

An unquiet ghost stalks her living descendants, seeking vengeance for a long-ago betrayal.Cassandra de Warenne, who writes historical novels, had never heard of her ancestral relative Isabel de la Barca until the fateful night of her sister's swanky party for her rich and famous friends. Tracey de Warenne just wanted to give her pals first peek at a priceless antique ruby necklace which is to be auctioned off by Sotheby's, where she more or less works. (All these characters inhabit the moneyed dreamland where those mythical beings known as jet-setters and playboys still flourish.) But Tracey's latest flame, an "internationally-renowned" professor of medieval studies named Antonio de la Barca, points out that the necklace is identical to one adorning the snowy bosom of Isabel de la Barca in a portrait dated 1554. And Antonio adds that Isabel's maiden name, before she married into his illustrious family, was de Warenne. Cass is intrigued . . . and instantly smitten with the darkly handsome Antonio. Strange things begin to happen that very night, causing one and all to pack their bags to head for Antonio's spooky family castle in Spain. Yes, intones Joyce (The Third Heiress, 1999), the place is crumbling and sinister; and yes, the eyes in the portraits seem to follow everyone around. Ere long, Isabel's malevolent spirit raises all kinds of ghostly hell, and eventually possesses Tracey, who is so blond, chic, and thin that she represents an irresistible target. Cass must fight her very own sister practically to the death-but not before enjoying several emollient bouts of sex with the ever-smoldering Antonio. Guess who wins the good sister/bad sister shriekfest.Wide-eyed genre clichés alternate with steamy boudoir scenes, in a romance sure to delight readers who can't find paperbacks featuring white-clad damsels fleeing moonlit Gothic towers anywhere in their local supermarkets. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004WPGFEO
Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Press (January 5, 2004)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 5, 2004
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1262 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 484 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #795,439 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #33,525 in Romantic Suspense (Kindle Store)
- #35,983 in Romantic Suspense (Books)
- #45,923 in Suspense Thrillers

Customer Reviews:
4.2 66 ratings

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Brenda Joyce

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Brenda Joyce is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of fourty-nine novels and five novellas. There are over fourteen million copies of her novels in print and she is published in over a dozen foreign countries. A native New Yorker, she now lives in southern Arizona with her son, dogs and numerous Arabian and Half-Arabian reining horses. Brenda divides her time between her twin passions' writing powerful love stories and her quest to become a nationally ranked Top Ten equestrian. For more information about Brenda and her upcoming novels, please visit her websites: www.brendajoyce.com, www.francescacahillseries.com www.thedewarennedynasty.com and www.mastersoftimebooks.com.

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4.2 out of 5

66 global ratings

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Kindle Custmer Kate

Could not put down!

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2000

Verified Purchase

I think Ms. Joyce goes a little over the top with this one, but so what, it was such fun! Cass de Warenne is raising her sister Tracey's young daughter because Tracey is too busy with her jetsetting lifestyle to fit a child into it. Cass's constant worry is that Tracey will someday decide she wants to be a mother to her daughter Alyssa, and Cass would then lose Alyssa forever. When Tracey brings a new beau home, Antonio de la Barca, Cass is unprepared for her feelings toward her sister's newest conquest and from there things get very interesting. It seems the de Warenne family and the de la Barca family have a shared history of over 400 years, with a common ancestor, Isabel. The story then goes back and forth in time as we learn about what happened to Isabel 450 years ago and why she has been haunting the two families since then. The ghostly happenings do get a little farfetched, but I still loved every minute of it. This book was great fun to read and I would recommend it if you enjoy ghost romance mysteries.

2 people found this helpful

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Robert Harding

price

Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2023

ok

Good plot, writing style lacking

Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2011

Cass de Warenne is a writer of historical fiction who lives with her aunt and her sister's daughter in England. Cass' sister, Tracey returns home with a fantastic ruby necklace from her job at Sotheby's. She also brings Antonio de la Barca, her boyfriend, who also has an interest in the necklace, believing it to have belonged to an ancestor of his. As more information is revealed about this ancestor, they discover that the two families have been involved for generations, always with tragic consequences. Cass, Tracey, Antonio, Antonio's brother, Gregory and the two children belonging to Tracey and Antonio end up at la Casa de Suenas, the de la Barca family home, where they are confronted with the ghost of Isabel de Warenne de la Barca and the vengeance Isabel wishes to wreak on both families.
This novel of ghosts, history and revenge reads more like a straight-to-dvd horror flick than a novel. The setup to the action is rather longer and more arduous than necessary. The plot has a good concept, but the execution is quite heavy handed. The characters are still trying to disbelieve the existence of the ghost almost to the last page. Also, a lot of information is revealed to the reader, flashback style. The author can't quite make up her mind whether the characters are privy to this information as well. They seem to be aware of some things, without having gleaned that information from any obvious source other than the preceding chapter, but then, they are still in the dark about other details. The writing style is also...off...somehow. I can't really put my finger on what I didn't like about it, but the sentences did not seem to flow. I found myself having to re-read certain sentences to figure out what they meant, and in what is marketed as a 'beach book;' the reader shouldn't have to think that hard.
Having said all that; however, I was compelled to continue reading to the end. I liked the characters, for the most part, and was curious about what happened to them, as well as what happened to Isabel to make her so angry and vengeful. The ending was a little anti-climactic, and after more than 400 pages, I expected a bit better payoff.
Reading over this review, it seems more negative than I had intended. I did like the book. I'm just not sure I really like the author.

One person found this helpful

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Jackie M. Bachenberg

Good story, but needs a proofreader and a thesaurus

Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2002

Ms. Joyce tells a good tale, she just needs a good proofreader and needs to invest in and use a thesaurus.
The tale itself is a mixture of mystery, historical novel, and romance. The base of the story is that a woman who died 400 years ago is linked to two families. She feels that these two families betrayed her and she's still out to get them. The story mixes modern world with the story of this woman from 400 years in the past. Meanwhile, in modern times, you've got a pretty scary ghost story going on. The story itself is highly entertaining, as long as you don't pay attention to the details. Think of it as that highly entertaining, but critically unaclaimed movie that you watch just for fun. If you get caught up in the details that just aren't right, then make a game of it, because otherwise, it will make you crazy.
When I say it needs proofing, I'm not kidding. There are places where a man is described as wearing a black coat and then two pages latter it's blue. She describes a young boy as having polio. Now this takes place in modern times and this child is less than ten years old. To my knowledge, a case of polio hasn't been reported in Western Europe in the last 10 or 20 years, so that's just totally bogus!! And then there was my favorite proofing error, "She hid her hands behind her face." I'm not sure this is anatomically possible.
Ms. Joyce needs to get a thesaurus to try and cure her overuse of the word gaze. She loves this word, both as a noun and a verb and in one nights reading, I kept track. The longest Ms. Joyce could go without using some variation of this beloved word was two pages.
If you want a fun read, go for it. But don't be looking for literary excellence.

9 people found this helpful

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Patricia Jones

House of Dreams by Brenda Joyce

Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2017

Verified Purchase

Pleased with the order.