After nursing her dying mother, Aurora Norquest feels isolated from the living. But when bewildering dreams reveal her mother's untold secret, Aurora questions who is speaking during these wakeless hours. With love as his ally, can neighbor Philip Cannon help her to discern between truth and falsehood, whispers of guilt---and the voice of God? 320 pages, softcover from Nelson.

Aurora Rose Norquest is different from her neighbors, different from most people. Still single at thirty-five, she spends every hour of her days and nights in an elegant Manhattan apartment, quietly caring for her invalid mother.

Then her mother dies, and Aurora's world spins on its axis. Reality shatters into startlingly realistic nightmares, and the shards of troubling memories slice into her sleep. Everything Aurora has believed about herself and her world fades into murky dreams that will not let her rest. Something, someone is pursuing Aurora--growing more threatening by the day, testing the limits of her sanity.

Will she find the courage to confront her unseen pursuer? Or will she surrender to the destructive melancholy that haunts her days and nights? What will it take to satisfy the relentless intruder whose voice presses her toward The Awakening?

The Awakening is the story of a woman who has been trapped into a stifling life by her mother. First her mother ruled her by being domineering, then by getting Alzheimer’s and needing care.

When her mother dies, Aurora is finally free, but her years of endless servitude have twisted her until she is afraid to leave her apartment. Struggling to reclaim her life, she begins taking baby steps toward freedom. She goes up to the rooftop of her lavish apartment building. She walks down half a flight of stairs, forcing herself to go farther everyday. And she begins having nightmares.

Her new neighbor finds himself drawn to the fragile Aurora. He witnesses the controlling power of her mother’s only friend, who wants Aurora to continue living a life that will stand as a living monument to Aurora’s deceased mother.

Afraid to push Aurora, he instead helps, encourages and patiently waits for Aurora to climb a mountain of fear, one baby step at a time.

Parts of Aurora’s nightmares involve her father. A man she has never met, who her mother loathed and called only, “That devil”, Aurora longs to connect with the only family she has. Aurora is nearly torn in half by all the things she longs to do and the fears that imprison her in her apartment.

The Awakening is one of the most compelling books I’ve read in a long time. It’s a completely different style of book than I would normally choose. Not a romance or a mystery, although there are bits of each in it. It is an intense drama played out almost exclusively within the walls of Aurora’s home. Angela Hunt made me care about Aurora and cheer her on. Hunt made me hate Aurora’s mother and the old friend who fed Aurora’s fears. Hunt handles the subject with a frightening edge as I waited for Aurora to break free from her self-imposed prison.

The nightmares in The Awakening might give you nightmares of your own. – Mary Connealy, Christian Book Previews.com

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