DREAMLAND
From New York Times bestselling author Olivie Blake comes a tantalizing story of power, seduction, and the omens you’ll ignore when everything you’ve dreamed of feels just within reach.
The beautiful hardcover deluxe edition features sprayed edges, a designed case stamp, and fully illustrated color endpapers.
The headlines are calling it the “summer of exsanguination” in LA—girls are being murdered, the Santa Ana winds are blowing a strange energy into the city, and all signs point to fire season.
More pressing for Anya Morris, though, is the drudgery of living at home,
From New York Times bestselling author Olivie Blake comes a tantalizing story of power, seduction, and the omens you’ll ignore when everything you’ve dreamed of feels just within reach.
The beautiful hardcover deluxe edition features sprayed edges, a designed case stamp, and fully illustrated color endpapers.
The headlines are calling it the “summer of exsanguination” in LA—girls are being murdered, the Santa Ana winds are blowing a strange energy into the city, and all signs point to fire season.
More pressing for Anya Morris, though, is the drudgery of living at home, working part time at the family store, and contending with her mother’s disdain for the acting career Anya knows she’s destined for but that feels more impossible by the day.
It’s in this suffocating late summer heat that Anya receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, an invitation to work for the de Witt family, one of LA’s most influential film dynasties. Soon, she’s spending her days and nights at their strange villa high in the Hollywood Hills, where she meets Jude, a recluse who is both the family’s heir apparent and its most closely guarded secret.
There’s a magnetism to Jude that Anya cannot resist, despite warning signs that scream like sirens in the night. Because the villa holds generations of bloodstained history, and an occult family curse may even live within its walls—or within Jude himself.
In this city, everyone cuts a deal with the devil. When Anya comes face to face with a devil of her own, she’ll learn just how far she’s willing to go to get everything she’s ever wanted.
- Tor Books
- Hardcover
- August 2026
- 368 Pages
- 9781250368935
Buy the Book
$29.99
About Olivie Blake
Olivie Blake is the New York Times bestselling author of speculative fiction for adults, including The Atlas Six trilogy, Alone with You in the Ether, Masters of Death, the short story collection Januaries, and her novel, Girl Dinner. With Little Chmura, she is the co-creator of the graphic series Clara and the Devil. As Alexene Farol Follmuth, she is also the author of the young adult novels My Mechanical Romance and Twelfth Knight. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and son.
Praise
“A gothic masterpiece.” —Alix E Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of Starling House
“A deft and deeply unsettling examination of power, ambition, and the brutal work of making dreams reality.” —Alexis Henderson, author of An Academy for Liars
“An intoxicating, Hollywood gothic that washes over you like a sweeping Pacific sunset.” —Chuck Tingle, USA Todaybestselling author of Lucky Day
“A dizzying and atmospheric fever dream of a novel.” —Monika Kim, award-winning author of The Eyes Are the Best Part
Discussion Questions
- Dreamland begins with a director’s note that includes these instructions: “Play love as if it is delusion. Play it earnestly. Play it doomed. … Love as in helplessness; love as in sickness; a viral, fever pitch. A very real and propulsive spell. Love as in escape.” How do these descriptions reflect Anya and Jude’s experience with love?
- When you met Jude in “0008 Awake,” what were your hunches about the nature of his condition?
- Despite red flags, Anya accepts the high-paying job offer from Emmanuelle, who continually dangles the prospect of being cast in a great part. Have you ever wanted something so badly that you were willing to take extreme risks to achieve it?
- We learn the ancestral stories of both Jude and Anya. How is Anya influenced by the legacies of her immigrant heritage and the women who raised her? How does Jude’s origin story reflect the real-life tragedies of families destroyed by selfishness and jealousy?
- How does the environment of Anya’s apartment complex contrast with the setting of the de Witt villa? What does this suggest about expectations and reality when it comes to social mobility, immigration, and wealth?
- Discuss Los Angeles as a character in the novel, echoed in the title Dreamland. From the weather and the architecture to the storied history, how does the setting influence the cast of characters in Dreamland? How does the novel approach the city of Los Angeles as a figure caught between the threatened film industry and the burgeoning tech industry?
- “You have a devil on your back,” Tita Linda tells Anya. What do you think the novel suggests about the nature of evil?
- How did you react to the novel’s shifting points of view?
- During the climactic scenes in chapter 22, “When All Is Said and Done It Always Ends in Flames,” what did you discover about the nature of the de Witt family’s shared fate? What was William de Witt’s ultimate vulnerability—and Anya’s ultimate strength?
- How does Dreamland enhance the kaleidoscopic experience of the human psyche that you have enjoyed in Olivie Blake’s previous fiction?
Guide written by Amy Root Clements
This guide has been provided by Macmillan for reading group use. It may be reproduced in its entirety or excerpted for these purposes.