Dermot Nolan is an award-winning bestselling author who seems to have it all—a successful career, fame, fortune, and a beautiful wife. Between the royalties coming in from his most recent book and the revenue he has received from the film company that bought the rights, Dermot seems every bit the literary darling.

And yet, for the last year, he has suffered from a bout of writer’s block, and in the process has grossly overspent his income. So when Dermot comes across an unsolicited manuscript stuffed into his mailbox, he cannot help but feel intrigued. It tells the story of the homicidal “Dream Healer,” who snares his victims via his website, worstnightmares.net, seduces them into revealing their innermost fears, and then kills them by revisiting their very own nightmares upon them.

Dermot, with the help of his wife, begins to rework the novel, while simultaneously researching the individual dream stories. In his search, he very slowly begins to realize that the novel may not be entirely fictional, that these poor characters may have perished at the hands of a twisted torturer. Could the Dreamhealer be real? Could these innocent cyber-surfers have fallen victim to a raving maniac? Just how far is fact from fiction? And could Dermot be writing his own ticket to death...his very own worst nightmare?

Reviews:

"Worst Nightmares wraps the reader in a world of fractured, tangled threads. Its tight prose lends an air of immediacy and intimacy. All the danger, treachery, and suspense a reader could ask for is there, page after page. Shane Briant has the touch—like a born bard of old. A smashing debut."
— Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The Charlemagne Pursuit

“Shane Briant combines the psychological suspense of Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs, the creeping horror of Stephen King's Misery, and the eerie, inescapable fatality of The Eyes of Laura Mars.”
— Katherine Neville, New York Times bestselling author of The Fire

“Fans of Stephen King’s novella Secret Window, Secret Garden will enjoy seeing how Briant handles a similar plot in his creepy debut… Briant has crafted an exciting page-turner that bodes well for future thrillers from his pen.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Worst Nightmares is a terrific thriller as Nolan crumbling under writing pressure to produce his next novel takes a seeming shortcut that leaves him in a greater pressure cooker.”
— Harriet Klausner

About the Author

Shane Briant is an actor and novelist. Briant studied Law at Trinity College Dublin but became a professional actor at age twenty one, playing the name role in Hamlet at the Eblana Theatre. A year later he played one of the leads in Children of the Wolf, with Sheelagh Cullen and Yvonne Mitchel at London’s Apollo Theatre. Briant was subsequently nominated for the Best Newcomer Award by the London theater critics that year for this role. Since the early 1980s, the bulk, but not all, of Briant’s acting work has been in Australian and New Zealand films and television. He has starred in fourteen films. The first short film he wrote, A Message from Fallujah, won the Best of the Fest Award at the 2005 Los Angeles International Short Film Festival and was in the final mix of ten shorts for consideration for an Academy Award that year. He currently resides in Sydney, Australia.