What’s in a Name? The Fun of Choosing Book Titles by J. J. DiBenedetto | Dream Doctor Mysteries by Book Tour

The Dream Doctor Mysteries by J.J. DiBenedetto are on virtual book tour. The paranormal mystery series stops at Readeropolis...

The Dream Doctor Mysteries by J.J. DiBenedetto are on virtual book tour.

The paranormal mystery series stops at Readeropolis with an excerpt.

Be sure to enter for a chance to win the giveaway for a signed paperback, a swag pack, an audiobook of winner’s choice, or a $10 Amazon gift card (1 winner each) and follow the Silver Dagger book tour (for other dates see the link at the bottom of the post).

What’s in a Name? The Fun of Choosing Book Titles

I’ve always been very hit or miss with titles for the stories I’ve written. Either I know the title immediately, or it’s like pulling teeth to come up with something I feel good about, even after the whole book is written.

The Dream Doctor Mysteries fall squarely into the latter category. As I wrote the original first draft of what would become DREAM STUDENT, I had a placeholder title of “Dreamchasers” which I really didn’t like, but it seemed to sort of fit the story I was telling.

It wasn’t until I not only had a complete book, but I’d started work on the sequel (I still have the original Word file of that, titled “Dreamchasers 2”) that I finally came up with Dream Student, which I still didn’t love, but at least it sounded a little better than Dreamchasers, and it was thematically appropriate (Sara’s a college student in that book, and she’s also learning about her supernatural ability to step into other people’s dreams).

Once I had that, and I realized this could be a longer series, I had the idea that each title would follow the same formula, and there are enough short phrases using “dream” that I could work with it. So the second book (which is now the first book of the series, while DREAM STUDENT is now a prequel) became DREAM DOCTOR. Sara is in medical school, training to become a doctor, so it fit.

I was about 2/3 of the way through that book when it occurred to me what would happen at the very end of that book, after the climax of the main plot, and how it could set up the next book. Sara, who was now married, would find out she was pregnant, and that logically led to the title of DREAM CHILD for the following book. And at the same time, it hit me that the final book of the series – however many books in the future that might be – had to be called DREAM WEDDING, and it would have to feature Sara’s daughter getting married (each book skips ahead in time – the ten books of the series cover 25 years in Sara’s life).

There were a couple of other obvious titles that I knew would come up somewhere in the series – DREAM REUNION (book five, in which Sara attends her ten year college reunion), and DREAM VACATION (which kept getting pushed back and ended up becoming book seven).

The overall series title went through some revisions, too. It started out as simply “the Dream Series” which really doesn’t tell you anything. So I finally went ahead and retitled and relaunched it last summer, to what it is now – the Dream Doctor Mysteries.

So there you have it – all the fun and excitement of coming up with a suitable book title!

Dream Student

The Dream Doctor Mysteries Prequel

by J.J. DiBenedetto

Genre: Paranormal Mystery

Sara Barnes has her life totally under control. All she has to worry about is college exams, Christmas shopping, applying to medical school--and what to do about the cute freshman who has a crush on her. And everything is going according to plan, until the night she starts dreaming other people's dreams.

It's bad enough that every night is a theater of her friends' and classmates' secret fantasies. Worse yet are the other dreams, the dark ones featuring a strange, terrifying man committing unspeakable crimes.

As the nightmares increase, Sara's life becomes a blur of waking and sleeping, of terror and urgency. Because if she was given this dream-sharing gift for a reason, it must be to stop the killer madman she's come to know all too well. But how can she stop him when she's just a student, and they're only dreams?

Dream Student is the thrilling prequel to the Dream Doctor Mysteries.

**Start the series FREE!!**

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Dream Doctor

The Dream Doctor Mysteries Book 1

Between adjusting to life as a newlywed and trying to survive the first month of medical school, Sara Alderson has a lot on her plate. She definitely doesn’t need to start visiting other people’s dreams again. Unfortunately for her, it’s happening anyway.

Every night, she sees a different person and a different dream. But every dreamer has one thing in common: they all hate Dr. Morris, the least popular professor in the medical school, and they’re all dreaming about seeing him – or making him – dead.

Once again, Sara finds herself in the role of unwilling witness to a murder before it happens. But this time, there are too many suspects to count, and it doesn’t help matters that she hates Dr. Morris every bit as much as any of his would-be murderers do.

**only .99 cents!**

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Dream Child

The Dream Doctor Mysteries Book 2

Dr. Sara Alderson can deal with eighty-hour workweeks as a resident at Children’s Hospital. Dealing with crises in the Emergency Room or the OR is second nature to her. But now she faces a challenge that all of her training and experience hasn’t prepared her for: Lizzie, her four-year-old daughter, has inherited her ability to see other people’s dreams.

After Lizzie befriends a young boy on a trip to Washington, DC, and then wakes up in a panic that night because of a “bad funny dream,” Sara knows exactly what it means: her daughter is visiting the boy’s dreams. Complicating matters is the fact that the boy’s father is a Congressman, and he’s dreaming about a “scary man in a big black car” threatening his Daddy.

Unraveling a case of political corruption and blackmail would be hard enough for Sara under the best of circumstances. But when she has to view everything through the eyes of a toddler, it may be an impossible task.

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Dream Family

The Dream Doctor Mysteries Book 3

Dr. Sara Alderson didn’t think she had a problem in the world, when she walked into the office for her first day as a partner in her own medical practice. And then the police showed up and arrested her for a crime she couldn’t possibly have committed. Twenty four hours later, after a horrifying day and night in jail, Sara comes home a different – and completely broken – woman.

Clearing her name is her first challenge, but that’s nothing compared to the task of rebuilding her shattered psyche. And the only way she can do that is with the help of the supernatural dreams, the same dreams that have nearly cost Sara her sanity – and almost got her killed – in the past.

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Waking Dream

The Dream Doctor Mysteries Book 4

After nearly a decade of visiting other people’s dreams, Sara Alderson thought she had made peace with her supernatural gift. Until one night, while watching her husband dream, she saw someone else watching him, too: a mysterious woman in a red dress.

The woman in red keeps appearing in the dreams of Sara’s husband and his co-workers. Sara doesn’t know if this mystery woman is trying to steal her husband, drive him mad or something even worse. All she does know is that now she has something she never imagined: a nemesis. And the only thing more dangerous than a nemesis who shares her ability to step into other people’s dreams, is one who knows far more about that ability and how to control it than Sara does.

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Dream Reunion

The Dream Doctor Mysteries Book 5

Dr. Sara Alderson is heading back to college for her ten-year class reunion. Her husband and two of her children are coming with her – and so are her supernatural dreams.

One of her old classmates is becoming more frantic with every passing night. Sara can’t see his face, but she can see everything else in his dreams, and he’s coming closer and closer to committing a desperate act to try and save his business. Sara’s the only one who can save him, and his family – if she can figure out who he is and what he’s planning in time.

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Dream Home

The Dream Doctor Mysteries Book 6

Dr. Sara Alderson thought she was securing her and her family’s future when she moved them to a small town in New York and took a job as Chief of Pediatrics at the local hospital. Unfortunately, things aren’t going quite according to plan. For one thing, she has enemies at work who resent her from the moment she sets foot in the hospital.

For another, she’s visiting the dreams of an old man who’s seeing nightly visions of a storm that will wipe out the entire town. He’s convinced that the visions are true – and as winter closes in, Sara is starting to think he might be right.

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Dream Vacation

The Dream Doctor Mysteries Book 7

Thanks to her unique ability to step into other people's dreams, Dr. Sara Alderson has solved murders, unraveled conspiracies and saved lives. But when a crisis hits close to home, even her supernatural gift might not be enough to avert disaster.

On a family vacation to Paris, Sara's fifteen-year-old daughter Grace disappears without a trace. The only way to find her is through Sara's dreams. But her gift has taken an unwanted vacation, and without it, Sara has no idea how to rescue Grace. In a foreign city, with no clues, and her dreaming talent failing her for the first time, Sara must figure out another way to find Grace before it's too late.

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Fever Dream

The Dream Doctor Mysteries Book 8

Dr. Sara Alderson isn’t used to her patients dying for no reason. When a young boy succumbs to a mysterious illness that defies all her efforts to treat it, she refuses to accept defeat.

After two months of questions, Sara has attracted the attention of powerful people who don’t want their secrets uncovered, and will go to any lengths to make sure they stay hidden.

Now, time is running out for Sara to unravel the mystery before anyone else falls victim to the illness. And before her career, her family and her freedom are taken from her by enemies she doesn’t even know she has.

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Dream Wedding

The Dream Doctor Mysteries Book 9

It ought to be a joyful time for Dr. Sara Alderson. Her daughter, Lizzie, is about to graduate college, and marry her longtime boyfriend. But the family’s happiness is shattered when a drunk driver seriously injures her teenage son in a hit-and-run accident.

Now, instead of planning her daughter’s wedding, Sara must fight to save her son’s life. And when she discovers who the drunk driver was – someone she thought was a colleague and a friend – she has to fight her desire for revenge. Because Sara knows she has the power to visit the driver’s dreams, and in those dreams, she holds the power of life and death.

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Dream Fragments:

Stories From the Dream Doctor Mysteries

The novels don’t tell the whole story!

Readers of the Dream Doctor Mysteries know that Sara and her family have a very busy life outside the pages of the ten Dream Doctor Mysteries, and here’s your chance to peek into it.

Twelve stories are included in this collection, and you’ll discover what happened on Sara’s final Spring Break of college; Lizzie’s first day of school; Betty and Howard’s first trip out of the country; and much more!

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J.J. DiBenedetto is author of the Dream Series and the Jane Barnaby Adventures and lives in Arlington, Virginia with the love of his life and a white cat who rules the roost.

His passions are photography, travel, the opera, the New York Giants, and of course writing.

Mr. DiBenedetto is devoted to writing books with a sense of mysticism to entertain and perhaps invite his readers to suspend belief in a way they might never have.

Since he was very young , he has always been intrigued with the supernatural and things that can't be explained rationally.

By always asking way too many questions, it piqued his interest to the point of setting his writing off and running when he grew up! All the curiosity building up all those years were finally getting put into words to captivate readers. And it hasn't ended. His main goal is to share all the stories he has inside, putting pen to paper. And that's how the Dream Series was born.

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