Falling Awake by Jayne Ann Krentz

Isabel Wainwright has just been fired. She worked for a dream lab as a Level 5 extreme dream analysis. Her former boss had postulated that there were five levels of dreaming with very few people who are able to reach the fifth level. So far, Isabel is the only analyst they know of. There is an unnamed government agency who has been using Level Five dreamers to solve particularly nasty crimes. Isabel then interprets their more enigmatic dreams.

But her boss has died and his son fires Isabel. She is frantic since she just spent a lot of money on some very expensive furniture. Eventually she ends up asking her sister's husband, who runs a motivational center, for a job as one of his teachers.
The romance aspect comes in to play when one of Isabel's client, Ellis Cutler, who she had privately dubbed as "Dream Man," finds her and tries to draw her into the unnamed government agency. But he's not the only one who wants her expertise. There's someone else who is willing to kill to make sure Isabel doesn't leave with Ellis.

Four stars

This book came out September 30, 2004

Borrowed as audiobook from Audible Plus

Opinions are my own