Sweet Dreams, The Collection

I mentioned in a previous post that my high school years - and the first couple of my college years - were my Sweet Dreams phase. I promised some book blogger friends that I'd write/post about this collection of mine, so here it is. :)

Sweet Dreams is a series of exactly 233 stand-alone young adult (YA) romance novels published by Bantam (with the red rooster symbol) in the 1980s up to the early 90's, written by various authors, some of whom with more than just a couple of titles to their name. After the 233rd novel ("Follow Your Heart" by Bette Headapohl) was published, the series went out of print and was replaced by Love Stories, novels with the same concept and which I also collected (to be the subject of another post). The covers of the Sweet Dreams books are photographs of real-life models made to depict the girl protagonist in the novel. According to Wikipedia, it was through the Sweet Dreams books that another favorite teenage series, Sweet Valley High, was launched.

Of the many authors who have written for Sweet Dreams, my favorites are Janet Quin-Harkin, Sheri Cobb South, Linda Joy Singleton, and Diane Crawford. Janet Quin-Harkin wrote a spin-off series called "On Our Own", which had 6 books. I have 4 out of 6.

The very first book in the series that I read, "Questions of Love" by Rosemary Vernon, was owned by a cousin, and I couldn't find a copy of it anywhere. Then, I began collecting when I was in high school, saving up on my allowance every week so I could buy one book at a time. When I started buying them using my own money, the books cost P54.00 each, and at the time I bought a copy of the very last book, it was already around P150.00 each. Ah, inflation. :)

My collection began from book #179 onwards, because those were the ones that were being published at the time I started buying them. I managed to complete all of the titles from #179 to #233, all first editions. There was a time when Bantam reprinted select titles - the old ones, like #10 "Love Match", #44 "The Truth About Me & Bobby V.", and #15 "Thinking of You", so I bought all those, too. Then I started scouring Book Sale outlets, the internet (eBay, Sulit, OLX, Multiply), and even Amazon (no, I haven't bought anything off them yet) for the missing titles. A few titles were mooched, too. ;)

So far, in the many years that I've spent trying to complete the series, I am happy to report that I am now only less than 20 titles away from completing the collection. The condition of the books vary from mint, to good, to merely acceptable; some have doodles and names of previous owners, but all have the requisite plastic cover. Here are the copies that I own, photographed in batches of 25, albeit with some titles still missing. Please pardon the poor resolution. :)

Books 1-25. Book #1, P.S. I Love You, is at the bottom.

Books 26-50.

Books 51-75.

Books 76-100. Here, the layout and print became more colorful.

Books 101-125.

Books 126-150.

Books 151-175.

Books 176-200.

Books 201-225.

Books 226-233.

One of my most prized copies, "P.S. I Love You", which is the first book in the series, was a birthday gift from a good friend.

P.S. I Love You, now a collector's item.

And here is my super-duper favorite of the lot, one among many books by Sheri Cobb South that I love so much.

My most favorite of all, bar none. I *heart* Bruce and Darby!

Another favorite. Barrie & Paul. :)

The models get prettier every book published, too. These are two of my favorite ones. They're so pretty.

She reminds me of Natalie Portman.

The prettiest model, for me.

This one is a mint-copy edition, and I am so happy to have it. It was shipped all the way from the UK! I'm so glad I joined Bookmooch. ;)

This copy came all the way from London, thanks to Bookmooch!

The evolution of the covers. Compare the cover of "P.S. I Love You" to these two. "Moonlight Melody" is #206, and "My Secret Heart" is #207.

The cover layout changed when the series reached #207.

Bantam also published three-in-one books (they call it "omnibus"), a couple of which I also have. The most expensive book I bought was Janet Quin-Harkin's "California Girl", book #6, for P500.00, from a local eBay seller. 

Photo courtesy

Oh, and did you know that celebrities have also posed for the covers? Can you recognize these two celebrities? :)

So, there they are. The books in my collection, books that I will never, ever part with. I made a separate tab for the complete list here, so if by chance you will trip upon a copy of the titles that I still don't have, I would appreciate your help. :)

Any Sweet Dreams novel you've read? :)