Review-Awakening Dream by S.M. Knowles

Book Title – Awakening Dream Author – S.M. Knowles Publisher – Indie ISBN/ASIN - B00IDMXLFS Genre - Since her father disappeared while in Afghanistan, Rylee Everley has been taking things one day at a time. After burying their friend over the summer, she and her friends returned to school for their junior year. While her friends are worried about career choices and the future, she hangs on to a secret. Witches exist, and they live here among us. She has been asked to help vanquish a half witch who has caused some problems with only a wisp trapped in a necklace to help her, her own manifesting gifts, and cryptic dreams to guide her. To top it all off, her childhood friend, and crush, has been acting really strange ever since he started dating Adysin. He ditched the football team, and he acts like a totally different person. They were once so close, and now she finds herself missing him and feeling guilty for pushing him away. Is this just concern for a friend she’s feeling or could it be love? Can Rylee save her childhood friend from a witch who’s willing to go to any length and pay any price to keep him?

S.M. Knowles was born in Elmira, New York where she was swept away in a whirlwind to the Land of Oz--Independence, Kansas. Her parents were relocating for working opportunities and decided that this would be the perfect place to start new roots. Little did she know that this place would contribute to the inspiration for the first book she wrote in her Rylee Everley Series. While growing up, S.M. would travel the roads around her house while imagining she was somewhere else. Her imagination would take her everywhere, making the long hot summer days seem shorter throughout her fantasies. At the age of twelve, she decided to write her first book. Filled mostly with dialog, she filled up one-hundred pages, front and back. After taking the book downstairs to show her mom, and persuading her to buy her more paper, she excitedly ran back to her room. As she barreled through the door, S.M. tripped over items left on her floor, and her papers came raining down in her room. Discouraged, she stood there in tears, picking up her papers and throwing them in the trash. Her work had no organization, no numbers on her pages, just a child fulfilling a joy that she would put down and not pick up again. When she became older, she joined the military for something different. In that time, she was able to explore many places and even met her husband in Iraq. After coming home, she started her family in Arizona and went back to school, earning a Master's degree in Adult Education and Training.

S.M has done it again, the second book in Rylee's series was even better than the first. This is a fun read full of high school drama with a witch causing some extra drama. Can not wait for the next book in this series to see where this group will spend their senior year, if Rylee's dad was really on the phone, if the "mean girl" is gone for good. Highly recommend this series to paranormal book lovers of all ages.