"Dr. Pixwell is a specialist in bioarchaeology," she said. "She works on archaeological digs in Egypt."

"That´s right," Pix said. "You read my faculty bio?"

"No," Stevie said. "The teeth, your shirt, you´ve got an Eye of Horus tattooed on your wrist, the chamomile tea in the kitchen has packaging written in Arabic, and you have a tan line on your forehead from a head covering. Just a guess."

"That´s extremely impressive," Pix said, nodding. Everyone was quiet for a moment. A fly buzzed around Stevie´s head.

"Stevie thinks she´s Sherlock Holmes," her father said.

[Source]

I really do think she has read the faculty bio.

by Clare R. Johnson, Ph.D

I've been aware of lucid dreaming for years and even done it spontaneously a few times, but could never stay asleep for long once I realised I was dreaming. I immediately tried some of the first techniques explained in this book and got instant results on the first night for checking I was in a dream! Then several nights followed when I didn't have a lucid experience to test.

As the book points out, it takes practice. I started practicing with the techniques for 'programming' your mind to become lucid while falling back to sleep in the early morning hours, but not the full bladder one as that wakes me up quickly. I've had luck so far at the time of writing with trying to induce lucid dreams while falling back into a morning doze, but this is one of the things that takes practice. I fall into deep sleep too easily.

I took this one slowly, reading a few exercises and stopping to assimilate and experiment. I expect I'll be giving it a second reading as well. One of the unique things about the book is a 'quiz' to give you self-analysis about what sort of sleeper and dreamer you are in order to guide you towards the exercises that will be most effective for you. This gave me a lot of insight and some great suggestions to work with.

I have had multiple lucid experiences while reading the book and have been able to try the techniques for taking control of the experience and for trying to stay asleep for a while at least to enjoy it. I suspect this will get easier over time, but I'm definitely having some results.

The one thing I would take issue with is in a meditation, the author suggests staring into a candle flame. NEVER DO THIS!!! It can cause retinal damage! In any candle ritual or meditation, you look just above the flame, not into it. The rest of the advice on that one, to look around the periphery of the flame and see different perspectives, is fine. Just don't stare directly into it.

In the later chapters, the author gives advice for working any meditation or Yoga practice you might be using into the exercises, but she acknowledges that it isn't required if that's not your thing. The last chapter was about healing through lucid dreams, both psychological and physical. Despite being a natural sceptic, I know the mind can have tremendous effects on the body and I think it would be interesting to experiment with this. There were some apocryphal stories about people identifying and even eliminating tumours through lucid experiences, which I keep an open mind about.

In any case, the exercises to develop control of lucidity in your dreams are good and make perfect sense. My own early successes are enough to convince me that it's worth the practice and the author knows her stuff.

german and english review

audible audiobook

spoilerfree

Inhalt: Willkommen zurück an der Ellingham Academy!
Endlich hat Stevie einen entscheidenden Hinweis auf den Schreiber des Erpresserbriefes gefunden, der sich hinter dem Namen Wahrhaftiger Lügner verbirgt. Aber nach dem tragischen Unfall eines Mitschülers nehmen ihre Eltern sie von der Schule. Stevie würde alles dafür tun, zur Ellingham Academy zurückzukehren und den Entführer von Alice zu finden. Selbst einen Deal mit dem Teufel eingehen – oder Davids Vater Edward King ...

Ein toter Star. Ein entführtes Mädchen. Eine verschwundene Mitschülerin.
Bei dem Versuch, die berühmte Ellingham-Affäre zu lösen, stößt Stevie Bell auf mehr Fragen als Antworten. Doch zunächst muss sie das Verschwinden ihrer Freundin Ellie aufklären. Gemeinsam mit David macht sie sich auf die Suche nach ihr und stößt dabei auf einen versteckten Gang im Internat. Welche Geheimnisse sind noch hinter den Mauern der Ellingham Academy verborgen?

Meine Bewertung: Oooh, ich bin so froh, dass ich doch zurück gekommen bin!!!

Ich war mir nicht sicher ob ich zu der Serie zurück gehe, es gab so viele Dinge die mich in dem ersten Buch gestört hatten aber letzendlich hat meine Neugier gesiegt und hier sind wir also...

Der zweite Band hat mir so viel besser gefallen als der erste Band. Wahrscheinlich weil hier jetzt wirklich von Stevie so viel mehr ermittelt wurde. Ich kann verstehen, dass wir im ersten Band einfach die Zeit gebraucht hatten um erstmal die Academy und auch die ganzen Mitschüler und alles kennenzulernen.

Gut, dass das jetzt alles aus dem Weg war und Stevie sich jetzt wirklich (abgesehen von ihrer Nebenmission in Sachen David), wirklich auf das Ermitteln konzentrieren konnte. Ich hatte das Gefühl, wir haben davon einfach diesmal so viel mehr bekommen. Es wurden sooo viele Forstschritte gemacht und ganz ehrlich hatte ich nicht erwartet, dass wir schon die ersten Antworten auf Fragen bekommen würden. AAAAH!!!!!

In diesem Band hat mich wirklich nur David genervt, doch ich habe gelernt ihn wunderbar auszublenden und die Bücher einfach ohne ihn zu genießen, denn genau das kann ich tun wenn er nicht da ist. Ooops!!!!

Dafür haben mir die anderen Charaktere einfach wieder unheimlich gut gefallen und uch die neuen Gesichter, die wir bekommen haben.

Jetzt bin ich doch wirklich total auf Band drei gespannt und kann es garnicht abwarten ihn in die Hände zu kriegen. PLOT TWIST, denn niemand, nicht mal ich, hab kommen sehen.

***

Summary: All Stevie Bell wanted was to find the key to the Ellingham mystery, but instead she found her classmate dead. And while she solved that murder, the crimes of the past are still waiting in the dark. Just as Stevie feels she’s on the cusp of putting it together, her parents pull her out of Ellingham academy.

For her own safety they say. She must move past this obsession with crime. Now that Stevie’s away from the school of topiaries and secret tunnels, and her strange and endearing friends, she begins to feel disconnected from the rest of the world. At least she won’t have to see David anymore. David, who she kissed. David, who lied to her about his identity—son of despised politician Edward King. Then King himself arrives at her house to offer a deal: He will bring Stevie back to Ellingham immediately. In return, she must play nice with David. King is in the midst of a campaign and can’t afford his son stirring up trouble. If Stevie’s at school, David will stay put.

The tantalizing riddles behind the Ellingham murders are still waiting to be unraveled, and Stevie knows she’s so close. But the path to the truth has more twists and turns than she can imagine—and moving forward involves hurting someone she cares for.

My review: Oooh, I'm so happy I actually came back to this story!!!

I wasn't really sure about going back to this series, there were just so many things in the first book that I didn't like but at the end of the day, curiousity got the best of me and here we are...

The second book was so much better than the first one. Mostly because Stevie actually got to investigate and find stuff out. I totally get that in the first book we had to get to know the academy and all the other studens and stuff.

Thank god that is out of the way and Stevie (aside from her side mission concerning David) she kann actually focus on figuring shit out. I just feel like we got so much more of that this time around. We actually got somewhere and to be honest I didn't expect that we would actually get some answers already. AAAAH!!!!!!

In this book the only thing that annoyed me was David, but I found away to just ignore him really well and enjoy the books without him, cause that's how I would enjoy the books even more, with him gone. Ooops!!!!

I really enjoyed the other characters just sooo much more, and really liked the new characters we got.

Now I'm actually really excited about the third book and can't wait to get my hands on it. PLOT TWIST that no one, not even I, saw coming.

Wasn't that sure if I would go back to this, but this showed up on audible and well, I'm weak and couldn't just not continue.

I had to relisten to a chapter or two because I was trying to grocery shop while listening. It didn't go well. With everything going on, I'm having to be hyper-aware of my surroundings so I was overly paranoid. Didn't hear much of the first 2 chapters. But now I'm in the swing of it.