The Phoenix, the Tiger, and the Rose

"It's hard to stop loving someone when they're always in your dreams, haunting you, taunting you. It's sick love, the kind of love you'll die by fire like the phoenix over and over for, the kind of love that transcends logic, time, and death."

In the summer of 1982, a teenage girl named Veronica began having recurring dreams of a strange man. A man she's never known in her waking life, but it feels as if they've always known one another. A deep friendship begins, which blossoms into a long-term love affair in her sleeping world. Several months after the dreams started, it stuns her to see his face on a record sleeve. Alan Runner, the lead singer of a famous British pop band that had become a worldwide sensation, and the chances of getting to meet him outside the dream world were nearly impossible. Accompanying the dreams are coincidences and indications in his lyrics that he is dreaming of her too. But not all dreams become happily ever after. Life isn't a fairytale, and this is a story about soulmates trying to find one another despite impossible odds and the cruel universe that continues to keep them apart.

A tale spanning decades and includes passages from Veronica's dream journal, some of her poems, Alan's lyrics, and plenty of REM intimacy with a man she always hoped would save her during her darkest times.