Shana Abe, The Dream Thief

The Dream Thief

Shana Abe

Bantam, Sep 26 2006, $18.00

ISBN: 0553804936

In Darkfirth, England, Lady Amalia "Lia" Langford can "hear" the future in her dreams. In 1768 she began dreaming of the human Zane bringing the dreaded Draumr gem to her clan. Draumr is the only known item that can enslave Lia's people who are the shapeshifting Drakon, who live in the most remote mountainside of Northern England.

The clan knows Zane, as Lia's mother, married to the Alpha leader, saved his life; he likewise knows their secrets too. In 1773 The Drakon enlist Zane to bring to them the Draumr as they plan to insure it can never be used against them. Zane agrees to travel to and find the gem in the Carpathian Mountains. However, he has plans to use the gem's power to further his affluence and clout. What he never expected was to meet a Drakon in Hungary, but Lia waits for him there as she has heard her future and he is intimately the core of it.

The sequel to the delightful THE SMOKE THIEF, THE DREAM THIEF is a superb late-eighteenth-century, romantic fantasy that grips readers from Lia's first dream until the final confrontation five years later. Lia is a fascinating character as she has broken clan rules and risks her heart to insure that her beloved Zane does not harm her people. Zane steals the show as a "bad boy" who must choose between thieving diamonds and love; readers and the heroine will not be sure which he will select.

Harriet Klausner