Colleen Oakley is a dream come true...plus a book giveaway

Photo by Sarah Dorio

We're pleased to have Colleen Oakley back at CLC today. She was first here five years ago to promote her debut, Before I Go. Her latest novel, You Were There Too, published this week and it's already receiving some great buzz. Check out Melissa A's review for even more accolades. In honor of her latest novel being about dreams, she's here to talk about the topic. She's encouraging readers to share strange dreams with her, as well. She even has a copy of You Were There Too for one lucky reader!

Colleen Oakley is the critically acclaimed author of Before I Go and Close Enough to Touch. Colleen’s novels have been long-listed for the Southern Book Prize twice and short-listed for the French Reader’s Prize. Her books have been translated into 18 languages, optioned for film and have received numerous accolades including:

*Indie Next List Pick Jan 2015 and March 2017

*People magazine Best New Book

*Library Journal Big Fiction Debut

*Publisher’s Lunch Buzz Books

*Pop Sugar’s Books We Can’t Wait to Read

*Real Simple’s Best Books List

*Bookbub’s 12 New Books to Read If You Love Jodi Picoult

A former magazine editor for Marie Claire and Women’s Health & Fitness, Colleen’s articles and essays have been featured in The New York Times, Ladies’ Home Journal, Redbook, Parade, Woman’s Day, Marie Claire and Martha Stewart Weddings. A proud graduate of the University of Georgia’s school of journalism, Colleen currently lives in Atlanta with her husband, four kids and the world’s biggest lapdog, Bailey. (Bio adapted from Colleen's website.)

Visit Colleen online:
Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram

Synopsis:
Mia Graydon's life looks picket-fence perfect; she has the house, her loving husband, and dreams of starting a family. But she has other dreams too—unexplained, recurring ones starring the same man. Still, she doesn’t think much of it, until a relocation to small-town Pennsylvania brings her face to face with the stranger she has been dreaming about for years. And this man harbors a jaw-dropping secret of his own—he's been dreaming of her too.

Determined to understand, Mia and this not-so-stranger search for answers. But when diving into their pasts begins to unravel her life in the present, Mia emerges with a single question—what if? (Courtesy of Amazon.)

Only in My Dreams

I’ve always been a very vivid dreamer. I still remember dreams (and nightmares!) that I had when I was a young as 3 or 4. And I find them absolutely fascinating. Why do we dream? Why are they often so strange? Do they mean anything or are they simply a byproduct of neuronal activity (your brain processing information and creating new circuit connections) during the night, as some scientists theorize?

That’s why, when I was writing an article for WebMD a few years ago about sleep and I came across some research on dreams, it stopped me in my tracks. This study posited that there was enough anecdotal evidence to say that mutual dreaming—two people sharing a dream about each other on the same night—is a real phenomenon. I was flummoxed! I’d heard of it before—and of course I’d seen the movie Inception, but for the scientific community to support it, even though they had no idea why or how it happened—was incredible to me.

And as a novelist, it got my wheels turning. I, like a lot of people have nights when I dream of a specific person—usually someone I haven’t thought of in years. An ex-boyfriend, a crush, or even just a random acquaintance from high school. And I always wonder when I wake up from one of those—why did that person come into my mind just then? Does it mean something? And did that person dream about me, too? And I knew there was a really interesting story idea hiding here. While mutual dreaming usually happens to people who know each other really well—best friends, siblings, couples—I wondered, what would it mean if two strangers were dreaming about each other. And then ran into each other in real life?

What would that mean? Why would they be dreaming about each other? And to complicate things (because that’s what novelists do best), what if the woman was married to someone else when she ran into the man she’d been dreaming about? (Insert dramatic DUN-DUN-DUNNNNN! here.)

While I loved the story idea, I had one tiny problem—I had no idea what it could possibly mean! How would this end? So I dove headfirst into research where I learned all kinds of crazy things about dreams. Like, did you know Abraham Lincoln predicted his own death, by dreaming about it two weeks before he died? Or did you know that amazing ideas like Google and the double helix and the Beatles song yesterday were all first conceived in dreams? And don’t get me started on the Tumblr or Reddit threads were there are literally hundreds of stories of people who have dreamt of others and then met them in real life—whether at the bank or in a classroom or on the beach and swear it happened exactly the way that they dreamt it.

After a few weeks of reading books, interviewing experts and learning way more than I ever imagined I would about time theory and quantum physics, I finally knew exactly why my two characters were dreaming about each other and what it meant, and Mia, Harrison and Oliver began to come to life.

While the dreaming part of the novel was fun to explore, at its core, You Were There Too is a story about marriage after the bright and shiny has worn off it, and my attempt to answer the age-old question: Is true love a choice or fate? Because while dreams are fascinating—real life and real love are often way more complicated.

Feel free to come visit me on Facebook or Instagram and share your thoughts—and any weird dream stories of your own. Happy reading—and sweet dreams!

Thanks to Colleen for visiting with us and for sharing her book with our readers.

How to win: Use Rafflecopter to enter the giveaway. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. If you have trouble using Rafflecopter on our blog, enter the giveaway here. 

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Giveaway ends January 14th at midnight EST.