It begins with a simple note. Roger Bascombe wishes to inform Celeste Temple that their engagement is forthwith terminated. But, Celeste, for all her lack of worldly experience, is determined to find out why her fiancé should have thrown her over so cruelly. Adopting a disguise, she follows her erstwhile lover to the forbidding Harschmort manor, where she discovers a world — by turns dizzyingly seductive and utterly shocking — she could never have imagined, and a conspiracy so terrifying as to be almost beyond belief.

Seething with danger, terror and romance, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is a mammoth work of the imagination, a deliriously readable, heartstoppingly suspenseful, and darkly erotic masterpiece of storytelling.

"Oh, this guy is goooood! This is the most original thing I've read in years: deftly executed, relentlessly inventive, and with a trio of the most unusual and engaging heroes who ever took on a sinister cabal out to rule the world by means of sex and dreams." Diana Gabaldon, bestselling author of Outlander

"[A] plump English tea cake of a book: messy, studded with treats, too big and too rich to finish in just one sitting....[T]he voluptuous, unbridled excess, spilling from every page (all 760 of them), leaves you less satisfied than overstuffed. (Grade: B)" Entertainment Weekly

"A bloated, wildly fanciful Edgar Allan Poe-esque tale....The plot travels perilously tortuous paths....Way, way over the top." Kirkus Reviews

"About 500 of its 760 pages should certainly have been thrown out....[O]ne of those supposedly imaginative works that don't reflect much more inspiration than a late-night session spent flicking through the movie channels." The Wall Street Journal

"Dahlquist...has written a tale that combines swashbuckling adventure, a big dose of science fiction and burgeoning romance. But beware of carpal tunnel syndrome because of the demands of so much page turning." USA Today

"Dahlquist is having a good time here, and that feeling is transposed to the reader....[A]n ambitious and challenging work that makes demands but more than amply rewards the persistent and patient reader." BookReporter.com

Gordon Dahlquist is a native of the Pacific Northwest, where he worked for several years writing and directing plays. Since 1988 he has lived in New York. He has been a member of New Dramatists, is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect, and a founding member of the CiNE. His works include Messalina (Evidence Room, Los Angeles: SPF, New York), text for Babylon Is Everywhere: A Court Masque (CiNE, Schaeberle Theatre; Theatre Magazine), Delirium Palace (Evidence Room, Los Angeles; published in Breaking Ground), The Secret Machine (Twilight Theatre Company at Solo Rep), Vortex du Plaisir (Ice Factory '99 Festival at the Ohio Theatre, WKCR'S Manhattan Theatre of the Air), Island of Dogs (4th Street Theatre), Severity's Mistress (Soho Rep Theatre, New York University; winner of Primary stages' Bug & Bub award), Mission Byzantium! (American Globe Theatre, NYTW's Just Add Water Festival), and Reticence (Horace Mann Theatre).

He has written and directed several experimental films that have been selected for the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Seattle International Film Festival, and the Northwest Film and Video Film Festival. He is a graduate of Reed College and Columbia University's School of the Arts. He has received two Garland Playwriting Awards, for Messalina and Delirium Palace.

The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is his first novel.