Book review: The Dustman by S.M. Blooding

The Dustman (A Dreamland Novel, Book One)

By SM Blooding

Genre: Contemporary Urban Fantasy Romance

File Size: 890 KB
Publisher: Blooding Books (April 1, 2012)

Blurb: Dustmen are useless.

Meg has two kids, one of which is hell bent to land himself in jail. She’s about to lose her house, her home, her ability to support her children. Her aunt tells her to publish the story of her childhood friend, her dustman, her Luk.

Dreamland is empty.

He’s watching his world shrink, his friends blinking out of existence. Children no longer call for him. He’s watched his fellow dustmen disappear while their lands are eaten by a ferocious void.

There is no cure.

He’s next.

My thoughts: Sandmen. Dustmen. Dream worlds. These concepts have always intrigued me so I was delighted when I received this book for review. Luk is a dustman or so he believes. He escorts children who believe in him to Dreamland, a wonderful place where they can explore, and then he takes them back home. There is one child who is special, Meg. She writes down her visits and illustrates them. As an adult she then shares these tales with her first child, Nicholas, and then some with her younger daughter, Nila. There's Luk, her gorgeous dustman, some of his associates, a gorgeous world to roam, and there's even a dragon.

But as it is with life, Meg grows up, and her visits to the dreamscape along with their memories, are locked away in her memory. When we first meet Meg, she is burned out. As a widower, she works three jobs to support her two children, hardly seeing them in the interim, has fallen behind in bill paying, and is generally not happy with life. Though she may be pushing herself through the motions of living, she is merely existing. And to top of everything, she's losing her house which has already been sold to another family. 


Enter Aunt Jo. Strong, big hearted, always nurturing, she runs an inn back home in a small mountain town in picturesque Colorado. She has come to take Meg and her kids home. Home to where Meg can rest, catch up with and enjoy her children, draw, and write (the one hobby she gave up to focus on working). 

When Aunt Jo brings her employee, a handyman named Luk along, Meg's world is about to get a whole lot of complicated. And by complicated I mean a rogue Elder is hot after Meg to be his wife, the dustmen and their worlds are disappearing and Luk may be next. Just when Meg thought life would ease up on her, she has to deal with figuring out the mysteries of a world she thought didn't exist before the things and man she loves disappears, while raising her kids.

The Dustman was an interesting and fun read. SM Blooding has created an intricate Dreamworld complete with dustmen, nightmares, Elders, a mysterious Lady and lake, along with a fascinating scheme of how this other world operates. Dustmen Luk and his friend, the engaging Finn, grew on me as well as Aunt Jo (and her 'relationship' antics with  town sheriff Joe), Elder Katrina, and of course, Meg and her kids. I enjoyed the idea of a small town watching out for its own when the mysteriously creepy Rich and his family of eight come to visit while he pursues Meg with his own agenda. The journey Meg must take to help Luk and the dustmen survive, as well as herself out of the clutches of Rich, made for an entertaining read. 


The dynamics between Meg and Luk were the heart of this story and kept my interest throughout. Watching Meg come back to life and learn how to embrace loving a man she always had and grappling with her own guilt of believing she didn't love her beloved husband, Tom, made her a realistic woman. SM Blooding has a really nice way of creating the setting and description of her fantasy world and some of her lines really stood out to me. The pacing kept the story moving so well I didn't want to stop reading and even though I found a couple of  sections confusing with such an array of characters, the author filled in those moments for me.

All in all I found The Dustman a sexy, fun, and enchanting novel. I wonder what SM Blooding has in store for her next Dreamscape book?

Rating: I really liked it.

Favorite excerpt: "He looked at her, his eyes flaring, icy blue lights shooting from his eyes. “How is it you’re here?”

She took a step back. “What do you mean?”

“You exist. How?”

She frowned at him, her nose flaring. “I was born.”

He took one step toward her, his mouth set in determination. “So was I a long time ago.”

“Things happened, Luk. I had to grow up. I couldn’t—” She looked at the refrigerator case in frustration. “I couldn’t pretend anymore.”

“Am I pretend?” he growled, taking a step toward her.

She looked up and blinked. She was surrounded by the warmth of his body as he crowded her space.

His eyes, consuming and raw, sucked her breath away.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

Like the unborn wrath of a tiger unleashed, he grabbed her waist and head, crushing her against him. His teeth ravished her lips, demanding them to open. His hands dug into her hair, pulling it loose in unruly waves.

She couldn’t breathe. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to. This man, this solid and real man, made her feel something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Craved.

Needed.

Devoured."

Cover comment: Intriguing.

Book source: Review copy provided by author through Bewitching Book Tours for my honest review during a blog tour.