Life Happens · Book 2
Dreams Live Here
The decision was made. There was a month to pack, and a family's life had to fit into four suitcases. The harder question came later: how do you actually live the dream?
Nadi Petrova · Contemporary fiction with autobiographical elements
About the book
Dreams Live Here follows the next part of Nadi Petrova's Life Happens story. The family moves through Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Bali, discovering new places and the unfamiliar freedom of a life no longer organised around the same routines.
It is a story about partners learning to see each other as separate people, the distance between a beautiful idea of change and its everyday reality, and the work of finding steadiness within yourself.
For readers of Elizabeth Gilbert, Frances Mayes and Laurent Gounelle
If Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert speaks to you through its search for a different life, or Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes through the everyday reality of building a home abroad, this book belongs on a related reading shelf.
There's another ingredient: the professional lives of a couple who have worked together in business. The move changes how they understand partnership, work, responsibility and freedom. Readers who enjoy the accessible psychological and philosophical questions in Laurent Gounelle's fiction may also recognise that side of the story.
Not a retelling of those books or an endorsement by their authors: these are thematic reading comparisons to help readers choose. Here, family relocation, entrepreneurship, long relationships and personal reinvention share the same pages.
Reading with a group?
Download nothing and sign up for nothing. Our printable Book Club Kit has discussion prompts for both published books, a host's checklist and direct links to free opening chapters.
Open Book Club KitQuestions readers ask
Is Dreams Live Here a sequel?
Yes. It is the second published book in the Life Happens trilogy. Starting with Love Lives Here gives the full emotional background.
Which places appear in the book's journey?
The official description names Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Bali.
Is there a free sample?
Yes, the site provides three opening chapters to read without payment.
Keep exploring
Story, identity and change
Nadi's journal
Notes on writing, editing, translation and starting over.
Read the journal