Dreamless

Josephine Angelini’s Dreamless introduces readers to Nikita Stark, a sixteen-year-old girl who has spent her life navigating the invisible boundary between the living and the dead. Unlike typical paranormal narratives that treat ghosts as mere plot devices, Angelini grounds her supernatural premise in the quiet reality of grief and familial legacy. Nikita’s ability to perceive spirits is not a gift she chose but an inherited trait that isolates her from peers and forces her to confront unresolved loss. Set against the backdrop of contemporary New York City, the novel weaves together coming-of-age struggles with a carefully constructed underworld where the departed linger until their earthly ties are severed. Angelini’s prose balances atmospheric mystery with emotional introspection, exploring how memory shapes identity and how the living learn to coexist with what they cannot change. As part of a larger series that expands into mythological and historical realms, this opening volume establishes a distinctive voice within young adult fantasy by treating the supernatural as an extension of human emotion rather than escapism.