Product Details
Worst Nightmares

Worst Nightmares
By Shane Briant

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Product Description

Dermot Nolan is an award-winning bestselling author who seems to have it all—a successful career, fame, fortune, and a beautiful wife. Between the royalties coming in from his most recent book and the revenue he has received from the film company that bought the rights, Dermot seems every bit the literary darling.

And yet, for the last year, he has suffered from a bout of writer’s block, and in the process has grossly overspent his income. So when Dermot comes across an unsolicited manuscript stuffed into his mailbox, he cannot help but feel intrigued. It tells the story of the homicidal “Dream Healer,” who snares his victims via his website, worstnightmares.net, seduces them into revealing their innermost fears, and then kills them by revisiting their very own nightmares upon them.

Dermot, with the help of his wife, begins to rework the novel, while simultaneously researching the individual dream stories. In his search, he very slowly begins to realize that the novel may not be entirely fictional, that these poor characters may have perished at the hands of a twisted torturer. Could the Dreamhealer be real? Could these innocent cyber-surfers have fallen victim to a raving maniac? Just how far is fact from fiction? And could Dermot be writing his own ticket to death...his very own worst nightmare?

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #681056 in Books
  • Published on: 2009-05-12
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 352 pages

Features

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Fans of Stephen King's novella Secret Window, Secret Garden will enjoy seeing how Briant handles a similar plot in his creepy debut. A deranged vagrant, Albert K. Arnold, delivers a manuscript titled My Worst Nightmares—My Delicious Memoirs to bestselling author Dermot Nolan at Nolan's converted warehouse home in downtown L.A. My Worst Nightmares chronicles the atrocities of a serial killer who lures victims through a Web site, Dream Healer, and then slaughters them in ways that conjure up their worst phobias. After Arnold dies from a fall from a building, Nolan, who's in a profound writing slump and under increasing pressure to produce a new book, appropriates the manuscript and publishes it successfully as his own work. Growing evidence that Arnold's writings weren't fiction causes Nolan and his family no little concern. While many will anticipate the real villain's identity, Briant has crafted an exciting page-turner that bodes well for future thrillers from his pen. (May)
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About the Author

Shane Briant is an actor and novelist. Briant studied Law at Trinity College Dublin but became a professional actor at age twenty one, playing the name role in Hamlet at the Eblana Theatre. A year later he played one of the leads in Children of the Wolf, with Sheelagh Cullen and Yvonne Mitchel at London’s Apollo Theatre. Briant was subsequently nominated for the Best Newcomer Award by the London theater critics that year for this role. Since the early 1980s, the bulk, but not all, of Briant’s acting work has been in Australian and New Zealand films and television. He has starred in fourteen films. The first short film he wrote, A Message from Fallujah, won the Best of the Fest Award at the 2005 Los Angeles International Short Film Festival and was in the final mix of ten shorts for consideration for an Academy Award that year. He currently resides in Sydney, Australia.

Customer Reviews

From Judith at J. Kaye's Book Blog5
Award winning author, Dermot Nolan is under pressure. His half-million dollar advance is spent and he can't seem to produce results. An unsolicited manuscript ends up in his mailbox. It's written by Albert K. Arnold and appears to be a memoir of a serial killer. Nolan and his wife investigate the murders to see if these were based on real people. What he discovers is chilling.

When Arnold apparently jumps off a roof and dies, Nolan takes the man's work and publishes it as his own. Months later, when the book is a success and there is talk of a movie deal, Nolan gets a phone call. Seems like Albert Arnold wasn't the jumper on that roof and Nolan's worst nightmare begins to take form.

The ending of the book was left to the reader's imagination. Normally, I'd throw a fit when this happens. With this story, it worked. When I finished the last page, I was done. I felt I knew what happened next and I didn't want anyone to tell me different.

Hard to believe this phenomenal thriller is a debut. I can't wait to see what Shane Briant will come up with next!

An Author to Watch!5
Dermot Nolan is a New York Times bestselling author who is suffering from a bit of writers block. He's already spent the million dollar advance he received from his publisher His bestselling book is being made into a movie. All of this success should be inspiring, but his creative juices are tapped out.

Then one day, Nolan notices an old man depositing something into his mailbox. It's a manuscript detailing a series of horrific murders. Each murder is described in such vivid detail Nolan begins to wonder if they are real. The killer refers to himself as the The Dream Healer, and his Web site promises individuals relief from their nightmares. Unknowing victims log on to this site and reveal their nightmares, in real time, to The Dream Healer. Those suffering from nightmares due receive a release from their nightmares, but not the way they intended. The Dream Healer hunts them down and kill them by reinacting their nightmares.

Nolan's wife, Neela, and his long-time friend Nick encourage Nolan to use the manuscript as a basis for his new novel. Nolan begins to research this crimes and discovers evidence the crimes were real. He allows the book to be published and it's an instant bestseller. However, The Dream Healer hasn't stopped killing. When a number of crimes detailed in Nolan's novel take place, he becomes a person of interest. His life and the lives of those he loves are put in danger. What will it take to stop The Dream Healer?

I read Worst Nightmares while on vacation. It's not a short book, 352 pages, but I literally read it in one sitting. Briant's writing is chilling, his descriptions are so vivid and detailed that I literally had to stop and catch my breath. Not for the weak at heart, but a must for someone who craves excitement and a thrill. Be sure to lock your doors first though!

Shane Briant is definitely an author to watch. I hear a sequel is in the making and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy! And like Nolan's bestseller, I hope this one hits the movie screen!

A new, interesting horror writer on the block4
The main character, Dermot Nolan, is an accomplished, award-winning writer who is also struggling with a writer's block. He and his wife have pretty much spent the fortune that his previous bestseller earned him and Dermot cannot deliver another smashing work of fiction. Things are looking really gloom for him as his agent and publisher growing impatient and the million-dollar advance is gone without one page to show for it. Only Dermot's beautiful wife Neela and his best friend Nick know the desperate condition Dermot is in. Therefore, when a mysterious manuscript lands in Dermot's hands, they all see it as a possible means to end the financial and creative troubles. The manuscript, titled My Worst Nightmares - My Delicious Memoirs, is truly horrifying and gives gory, nightmarish descriptions of each victim's death based on his/her worst nightmare. The author's mind is truly sick and twisted but that's not what's bothering Dermot and Neela the most. The whole memoir is written in a crude but strangely authentic voice. So authentic that they decide to dig a bit deeper and see if by any chance all those deaths are not imaginative but real. What they discover is at once chilling and inconclusive. Dermot finally decides that the incidences were not real and goes ahead and submits the improved manuscript to the publisher as his own. And that's when all hell breaks loose.
Let me just get what I didn't like about Worst Nightmares out of the way. I figured out who the murderer was one third of the way. In that sense, it was unfortunately pretty predictable. The most disappointing thing about it was not even that I figured out who it was so soon, but why it happened shortly after (probably half-way through the novel). I don't know whether it was due to the way the book was written or the fact that I read so many horror/suspense books that it's very difficult to get a shock reaction from me.


Now that that's done, let me move on to what I really enjoyed. Mr. Briant is a very skilled writer as far as character development and portrayal go. He managed to put the main character, who we are supposed to sympathize with, as really bad things happen to him, in a very bad light. Maybe I am just a little sick in the head, but I couldn't help thinking that maybe Dermot deserved what he got in the end. He is a self-absorbed, greedy and egotistic person who at the core will do what it takes to get to the finish line. On the surface he might seem to be struggling emotionally and morally with what he's about to do, but it's really all superficial. I have to say that I wasn't prepared to dislike and not sympathize with the main character so much. That was my element of surprise and I loved it. Besides that main factor, Worst Nightmares is really good. The premise is, in my opinion, fresh and quite shocking. The book starts off fast and the action doesn't slow down until the end and it's all written very convincingly. Suffice it to say that, while reading it, I decided that I better not have any worst nightmares (even though I do) that I could tell anyone of just in case...