Laurie Faria Stolarz
Blue Is for Nightmares (Stacey Brown, Book 1)
Llewellyn (1st November 2003)
Trade Paperback ISBN: 0-7387-0391-5
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Magic is not a favourite of mine in urban fantasy, and by ‘magic’ I mean those who wiggle their fingers, incant something, and…well, ‘magic happens’. Because that seems too unrealistic for me.

Laurie Faria Stolarz, however, has taken a much more believable approach. Her character is Stacey Brown, circa sixteen years old, living at a co-ed boarding school. A hereditary witch, she uses oils, herbs, candles and such - not only to help her with her spells, but also to cover up her most secret-secret.

In her dreams, Stacey has premonitions of her best friend’s death, and so launches a race to protect roommate Drea, whilst also investigating Drea’s stalker.

Often young adult novels bring back memories of my own sucky education, so I have trouble relating to the characters. But that wasn’t a problem with this novel.

I would’ve liked to see further exploration of the relationship between Stacey and her police associate. Naturally, at first the police don’t believe Stacey when she approaches them, but when Stacey’s dreams prove real, the officer says she’ll believe her from now on. Only this was mentioned in a teeny paragraph, and it didn’t quite come across as believable. Also, the stalker’s motive was lame. Yes, I know that motive is unfortunately real in today’s twisted age, but it still seems lame to me. Other than those two issues, I really enjoyed this novel, and hope I can get the next instalments of the series.

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