But the drugs are nullified by alcohol, so Prohibition is in place and the world very much has the vibes of that 1920s era, though with more POC and queer characters living their best lives in waistcoats and dress pants. But I'd say Newham is even worse than Gotham because it's in a world where people have a chance of physically and permanently transforming into their worst nightmare when they sleep-unless they take drugs to stop themselves from dreaming. I mean, the titular city of nightmares is literally called NEWHAM. You know those memes that are like 'Would you live in Gotham if rent was 5 dollars a month?' That is basically this book. Tangled up in the aftermath of an explosive assassination, now Ness and the only other survivor-a Nightmare boy who Ness suspects is planning to eat her-must find their way back to Newham and uncover the sinister truth behind the attack, even as the horrors of her past loom ominously near. In order to prove herself, Ness cons her way into what’s supposed to be a simple job for the organization-only for it to blow up in her face. Ness will do anything to avoid becoming another victim, even if that means lying low among the Friends of the Restful Soul, a questionable organization that may or may not be a cult.īut being a member of maybe-cult has a price.

Whether that means becoming a Nightmare that’s monstrous only in appearance, to transforming into a twisted, unrecognizable creature that terrorizes the city, no one is safe. Because in Newham, the city that never sleeps, dreaming means waking up as your worst fear. Gotham meets Strange the Dreamer in this thrilling young adult fantasy about a cowardly girl who finds herself at the center of a criminal syndicate conspiracy, in a city where crooked politicians and sinister cults reign and dreaming means waking up as your worst nightmare.Įver since her sister became a man-eating spider and slaughtered her way through town, nineteen-year-old Ness has been terrified-terrified of some other Nightmare murdering her, and terrified of ending up like her sister.

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