What’s the Buzz?: 'A Theory of Dreaming'

Ava Reid’s YA fantasy debut A Study in Drowning was a breakout book since its release in 2023; it spent 26 cumulative weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, earned starred reviews from PW and School Library Journal, appeared on multiple Best Books lists, and was crowned a BookTok favorite. But for Reid, there was “no expectation on my part that it would do so well.”

When the book was released, “it wasn’t a lead title by my publisher,” Reid said. “I didn’t have physical ARCs. There wasn’t a huge campaign behind it. It was just me and my little Instagram account against the world.”

That’s no longer the case as the highly anticipated duology closer A Theory of Dreaming is set to hit shelves next week.

A Study in Drowning introduces University of Llyr students Effy, the only female architecture student, and her academic rival Preston, both of whom have centered their research around the prolific late author Emrys Myrddin. Working together despite their opposing viewpoints, the duo stumble upon secrets about the writer and the school’s history.

In the follow-up, Effy has become the first woman at the University of Llyr to earn a spot in the literature department. Despite it being her lifelong dream, Effy finds that her gender becomes a barrier in accomplishing her goals and struggles to acclimate. Meanwhile, Preston’s new research leads him to start imagining a world where he could make a difference, but his pursuit could upend the validity of Llyrian history.

Reid had no intention of writing a sequel for A Study in Drowning; her two-book deal with HarperTeen (originally working with Stephanie Stein, but now under senior editor Sara Schonfeld) was for two standalones. But a month after A Study in Drowning was released, Reid was already dreaming up an idea to return to that world, and because she hadn’t been anticipating writing another installment, she was able to write without any “baggage.”

“I feel like most authors would say the opposite, that it’s hard to have people’s opinions in your head when you’re writing the sequel to a book, but for me, it was kind of nice,” Reid said. “I was hearing what people liked about the first book, and then I was thinking, ‘Okay, if you like this about the first book, maybe it’s something I should dig into more in the sequel.’ ”

Many readers left Reid’s series starter with more questions than answers about the book’s ending, and Reid leaned into crafting a sequel that would continue to challenge readers to seek their own conclusions. “One of the biggest things I wanted to maintain throughout [the series] was I didn’t want the sequel to say, “Now I’m going to answer all your questions, and I’m going to tell you that magic is real, or magic isn’t real,” she said. “I wanted it to still feel like it was this exploration of an idea and not an answer to the idea.”

Reid, who often bases her books (she has also written fantasy novels for adults) on a theme, came to A Theory of Dreaming with questions about who owns a story. “I was continuing off this question of what are the stories that we need to tell ourselves? And whose stories get to be privileged and become what we regard as fact.”

Schoenfeld notes that readers will recognize Reid’s “gorgeous worldbuilding, the beautiful language, and the heart-stopping action” from A Study in Drowning, and in this new installment will enjoy how Reid has “evolved these characters, their relationship, and their world.”

“If Study is a coming-of-age novel and a falling-in-love story, Theory broaches even more complex questions about life, identity, and being in love,” Schoenfeld said.

A Theory of Dreaming is “more political” than its predecessor, according to Reid, and leans more heavily on Preston as his research leads him to questions about the truth of his world’s history. “To quote Benedict Anderson, the nation is this imagined community. It’s an idea,” Reid said. “It takes a lot of people believing in the same idea to create a nation. I was pulling that out [from the first book] and making that a central part of A Theory of Dreaming, and Preston’s story.”

Reid added, “It’s also a book about grief.” Still grappling with the loss of his father, Preston tries “to build out a fantasy world to cope with the things in reality that are just too difficult to bear.”

Effy is struggling with the pressures of being a woman in academia and its toll on her mental health, which is a return to a similar concept in the first book. “Effy is in such an incredibly vulnerable position throughout both of these books,” Reid said. “Being the only woman in this very isolated environment—there’s something just intrinsically horrifying about that.”

Effy’s struggles with academia is one that hit home for Reid, making Effy’s arc a “really personal story” for the author. “I had a lot of experiences as an undergraduate that were if not an exact literal mirror of Effy, then a kind of emotional mirror,” she said. “I remember feeling like the dream that I had was not matching up to reality.”

Reid’s ability to portray such difficult subject matter is what Schoenfeld believes continues to draw readers to her works. “Theory feels real and true in a heartbreaking way, but it’s Ava’s genius that also finds a way to unflinchingly depict the pain and, along the way, heal us all.”

For those grieving the end of the series, Reid isn’t finished with the universe quite yet. Readers can look forward to the release of An Archive of Romance, out on December 9, a novella set in the same world filled with letters, poems, and art from across the series.

“This is such a special series to me because it made a lot more possible for me as an author,” Reid said. “This is the era when so many of my dreams came true. So it’s always going to have a very special place in my heart.”