Writer Bridget Foley says she has “always been a storyteller.” One of several children, she grew up in Littleton — where her parents still live in the same house. She graduated from Littleton High School and attended the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

She has been an actress and screenwriter and her first novel, “Hugo and Rose,” published in May by St. Martin's Press, shows a cinematic flair with the creation of a vivid imaginary world.

She now lives near Seattle with her husband and children.

Foley will make two appearances in the Denver area in July to read and discuss her new book with readers: at 7 p.m. on July 10, she will visit the BookBar, 4280 Tennyson St., Denver, and at 7 p.m. July 28, she will appear at Tattered Cover, Aspen Grove, 7301 S Santa Fe Drive, Littleton.

“Hugo and Rose” takes place in a suburb of Denver, Foley said, but there is little to recognize — not that it matters to the storyline.

Rose is a suburban housewife with three children and a busy surgeon/husband, who adores her, but is gone a lot.

Since she was 6 years old and hospitalized while recovering from a bicycle accident, Rose has had consistent dreams of her life and adventures on a magical island, always the same place and with the same companion — a boy her age named Hugo. Both grow up to a point, but are not adults in the dreams, which continue into her grown-up married life.

She has hit a familiar point in some women's lives, when she is stressed, overworked, overweight and seeks escape in a familiar fantasy world — but when she sees a grown-up version of Hugo at a drive-in, her real world goes out of control.

The reader who enjoys fantasy will be intrigued with the consistent and colorful descriptions of the island, with its pink sand, blue waters, remote magic city and scary monster spiders — as are her young boys when she shares the vision with them.

Shades of Oz?

The novel combines a fantasy writer's detailed creation of an alternate world with a contemporary woman's feeling of confinement in what looks like an idyllic life, which fails to offer intellectual fulfillment.

Her fantasy extends here to finding that someone else has shared the same dream world with its challenges and pleasures.

Has she lost touch with reality or will she regain control of her life? A psychiatrist enters the picture.

Interesting storytelling, although I found some descriptions of island adventures hard to follow.

And the jumble of emotional reactions are frightening to contemplate when she's also caring for children and husband. The last quarter of the novel is unsettling and whipped into a storm. Not quite a beach read, but…