On A Bookish Word or Two, we have a guest post by Theresa Cheung, author of NightBorn. Theresa is an internationally bestselling author and public speaker. She has been writing about spirituality, dreams and the paranormal for the past 25 years, and was listed by Watkins Mind Body and Spirit magazine as one of the 100 most spiritually influential living people in 2023. She has a degree in Theology and English from Kings College, Cambridge University, frequently collaborating with leading scientists and neuroscientists researching consciousness. Theresa is regularly featured in national newspapers and magazines, and she is a frequent radio, podcast and television guest and ITV: This Morning's regular dream decoding expert. She hosts her own popular spiritual podcast called White Shores and weekly live UK Health Radio Show: The Healing Power of Your Dreams. Her latest book is the paranormal thriller, Nightborn, available at Amazon US and Amazon UK.
You can visit her website at www.theresacheung.com or connect with her on X, Facebook, Instagram or Goodreads.
Read a sample.
NightBorn is available at Amazon US and Amazon UK.
Read below what inspired Theresa to write her book.
Some Dreams Refuse to Stay Silent: How NightBorn Found Its Way Into the World by Theresa Cheung
For more than twenty years, dreams have been the centre of my professional universe. I’ve spent my life studying them, interpreting them, writing about them, and when I’m very lucky helping people understand the extraordinary intelligence hidden in their sleeping minds. My readers know me for my dream
dictionaries (including The Dream Dictionary A–Z, originally The Element Encyclopaedia of 20,000 Dreams), my research into the afterlife, spirituality, intuition, and all the places where science meets mystery. I’m also the resident dream expert on ITV’s This Morning, where callers regularly share the inner landscapes that puzzle or inspire them.
So yes, I’ve been called the British grande dame of dreams and, on some days, I happily accept the title. But NightBorn, my debut novel, is something different. It’s the book that came not from analysis or academic study, but from a creative impulse I simply couldn’t contain. In many ways, it feels like the dream I’d been waiting for my whole life.
Dreams in My DNA
My fascination with dreaming didn’t begin in a library. It began at home. I grew up surrounded by family members who spoke openly about intuition, symbolism, and spiritual experiences. Dream interpretation was woven into everyday conversation. By the time I went to King’s College, Cambridge to study Theology and English, I already saw dreams as both deeply personal and universally significant. They aren’t just psychological events—they’re stories, messages, mirrors, warnings, and sometimes gifts.
For years, my mission has been to normalise dreamwork, to show that dreams hold profound insights into emotional, spiritual, and creative life. But as much as my nonfiction books reached countless readers, I knew that many younger audiences, like my own daughter, arely pick up spiritual or psychological nonfiction.
I couldn’t shake the question:
How could I speak to readers who love stories but would never open a dream dictionary?
The Spark Came From My Daughter’s Bookshelf
My daughter devours gothic fantasy and dark psychological fiction. She reads with a passion I envy but she has never been even mildly tempted to read my reference books.
One afternoon, watching her tucked into a corner with some atmospheric, shadowy novel, a thought struck me with startling clarity: What if I slipped dream interpretation into a story she couldn’t resist?
That moment planted the seed. I began imagining a novel where everything I’ve discovered about dreams, archetypes, and the subconscious could hide beneath a narrative full of tension, mystery, and emotional punch. A book that felt like a dream, beautiful, unsettling, layered, while quietly teaching readers how to understand their own inner worlds.
That idea became the heartbeat of NightBorn. Every major character carries some connection to dreams, psychology, or the unseen workings of the mind. Their conflicts and revelations echo the symbolism I’ve studied for decades. And the core message - Some dreams must be set free, Nightmares, after all, are dreams too - became both the theme and the spine of the story.
A Leap Into the Unknown
Despite my enthusiasm, writing fiction was far outside my established world. I knew how to structure a dream dictionary, how to analyse symbols, how to explain spiritual concepts clearly but writing a novel requires a wholly different set of muscles.
I had to learn those muscles from scratch.
I consulted trusted author friends, took workshops, and accepted critique I knew would sting. Slowly, the manuscript grew more layered, emotional, unpredictable, just like the dreams that inspired it.
Finishing it was a victory. What came next was the challenge.
When I sent NightBorn to my longstanding nonfiction publishers, the response was warm but firm. They didn’t want me wandering outside the spiritual/dream niche they had built around me. Fiction simply didn’t fit their expectation of what a “Theresa Cheung book” should be.
The polite rejection hurt but it also crystallised how deeply I believed in this story. So I took a risk. I partnered with an indie press, knowing I would receive no advance and little of the traditional publishing safety net I had once relied on.
It felt like jumping without seeing the ground. But sometimes the only way to honour a dream is to leap.
Five Years of Detours and Determination
From the first notes in my journal to the finished copy landing in my hands, NightBorn took nearly five years to come to life. I rewrote it countless times between my nonfiction deadlines. I questioned myself. I doubted whether anyone would ever read it.
But the story wouldn’t let me go. And I’ve learned over decades of dreamwork that when something refuses to be silenced - whether it’s a dream or an idea - you must pay attention.
One of the most delightfully unexpected turns in this journey involved the cover. We had no budget for a designer, so my son-in-law offered to try creating something. The result is striking, eerie, and unmistakably NightBorn. Readers tell me it gives them chills. Some say it triggers dream recall. I couldn’t imagine a better response.
A Story With a Purpose Hidden in Its Pages
Many readers on Goodreads have given me reactions that surprised and moved me. People talk about the plot and the characters, of course but many also say the book made them remember their dreams again, or think differently about their subconscious, or reflect on aspects of themselves they had ignored.
That reaction means everything to me because it reflects the book’s true intent.
NightBorn
is, on the surface, a psychological thriller. Beneath that, it’s a
secret guidebook - a way of showing readers how powerful their inner
worlds really are.
Dreams are natural healers. They are storytellers. And they are teachers. I believe dreamwork should be as essential as reading and writing in early education. Imagine if every teenager knew how to listen to the messages their psyche sends each night. Imagine how empowered they would feel.
My Fictional Love Letter to the Dreaming Mind
NightBorn is the book that unites both halves of myself: the researcher and the dream evangelist, the scholar and the storyteller. It represents my belief that fiction can sometimes carry truth more powerfully than facts alone.
My hope is simple: That NightBorn encourages readers - especially those who might never pick up a nonfiction guide - to honour their dreams again. Because some of the most transformative journeys begin quietly, in darkness, with a dream that refuses to be ignored.
