Dream Eater: A Novel of the Portland Hafu by K Bird Lincoln published by World Weaver Press
Koi Pierce has an ability: skin to skin contact gives her a flash of someone’s most intense dreams. Her life as a student in Portland is upended when she experiences a professor’s homicidal dreams. A handsome but mysterious stranger reveals Koi is not the only supernatural being in Portland. Now that Koi is finally ready to finally face her power, the only one who can answer her questions is her father, who is unfortunately suffering from Alzheimer’s. To protect her family, Koi must face a dragon and his human servant, while being helped by a Kitsune with a dark past that she finds herself drawn to.
I enjoyed this novel. I’ll admit when I hear supernatural Japanese creature I immediately jump to kitsune, which have made their way into Western fantasy. Lesser known beings are central to the plot, and there are also beings from Pacific Northwest indigenous tradition. It felt like a story that could take place in modern Portland, and it could not happen anywhere else. My caveat is I’ve never lived there so for all I know it could be completely made up. But it feels authentic.
Koi is a character I enjoy spending a novel with. Her budding romance with Ken, the kitsune, brings all her wants and fears to the surface, which makes for excellent tension. I also liked having a racially mixed main character and having supernatural indigenous characters that weren’t one note words of wisdom or expository scenes for the benefit of the main characters.
One thing that stretches credibility: the Dad is Japanese and speaks an obscure dialect. The mom is Hawaiian. Both daughters are fluent in Dad’s Japanese dialect, but for that to happen the parents would need to speak to each other in that dialect at home. But that isn’t the Mom’s first language, so it strikes me as odd. I am not questioning that they would know some, but fluency requires being a part of a community of language speakers, and they do not know any of their father’s relatives.
It however is an interesting world, and the end of this novel left me wanting to learn more.