You Were There Too

Starred review from October 14, 2019
Oakley (Close Enough to Touch) blends an old-fashioned love story with a fresh psychic mystery for a satisfying look at commitment, forgiveness, and fate in this can’t-put-it-down story of a young couple whose dreams and regrets challenge their marriage and plans for a family. Artist Mia and her doctor husband, Harrison, have just moved to a small town near Philadelphia when Mia miscarries for the third time. The crisis worsens: Mia’s recurring dream of a stranger gets starkly realistic when she meets Oliver, the flesh-and-blood “man from my dreams,” who confesses “I dream about you too.” Meanwhile, Harrison sinks into depression over the death of a young patient, and rejects the idea of any more attempts at starting a family as Mia and Oliver embark on their own search together for why they’ve shared versions of the same dream. Their journey, however, becomes increasingly fraught as Harrison retreats further into his grief, and they turn to each other. “I know you’re married. And it’s messy... I believe that this all means something,” Oliver says of their disturbingly prophetic dreams. A visit to a psychic notches up Mia’s anxiety about both her marriage and Oliver. There is a splendid blend of humor throughout Oakley’s alternately romantic, idiosyncratic, and foreboding love-conquers-all tale that easily engages new readers and will please the author’s fans.