Evensong by Krista Walsh

Synopsis From Publisher:

Author Jeff Powell wakes up to find the impossible has happened.  He is within his own novel - summoned into the fictional world of Feldall's Keep by a spell he didn't write.  One the House enchantress hasn't figured out how to reverse.

When the villain he's been struggling to write reveals himself, unleashing waves of terror and chaos, Jeff must use more than his imagination to save the characters he created - and the woman he loves. 

Trapped within a world of his own creation, he must step outside the bounds of his narrative to help his characters defeat an evil no one anticipated, even if he must sacrifice his greatest gift.  In the end, he has to ask: are novel really fiction, or windows into other worlds?

As a kid, I fell in love with Fantasia and all the promise it held.  For years I would play a game in my head where every character I cam across, be it from books, movies, TV shows, or some other medium, lived in one giant fantasy world.  They formed organizations, opened businesses, built relationships, and fought the bad guys, who happened to be on a neighboring planet.  What all that meant, was that these characters existed outside their creator's mind.  They lived entire lives that were not influenced by their creator's arbitrary decisions.  That last concept is why I fell in love with this book, and why I can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy.

When Jeff wakes up in the world he thought he created, he's just a tad bit confused.  At first he thinks it's an elaborate prank, but quickly decides he is simply dreaming.  He plays along with the characters he though he invented, humoring them when they tell him they brought him there to solve some major problems.  Of course they lecture him a bit on the way he is handling some of the plot points, and quickly inform him that what he's writing is only a small fraction of their daily lives. Over time, as he gets to know them, to understand their history, he realizes that he is in fact in the world he created.  When he is faced wit the death of one of his "creations", a death he did not plan, his world is turned upside down.

To be blunt, I couldn't stand Jeff in the beginning.  I thought he was just a tad bit too egotistical, but he's an author who loves creating worlds, so what else should I expect from someone with a godlike complex.  And for the most part, his characters modeled that attitude.  As he matured, he softened up and I grew to like him.  And oddly, as he became less rigid, so did his characters.  As they turned to face a common threat, they grew as a unit, and really began to understand each other.  The one relationship I never understood or even liked was with the "love of his life."  It made no sense in the structure of the story, and I kept waiting for her to be killed off.  My wish was never granted, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the next two books.

I still don't think Jeff, nor his characters, know whether Jeff dreamed them up, or if he just tapped into their world, influencing their actions when he could.  I don't think I have a strong opinion on it either, and I'm okay with it.  I'm just looking forward to what happens next.