Julie Anne Long, To Love a Thief

To Love a Thief

Julie Anne Long

Warner, Apr 2005, $6.50, 384 pp.

ISBN: 0446614262

Gideon Cole paid off the debts his deceased father left him alphabetically; the barrister also drew up a master plan to which he adheres with no deviation. Part of his plan is to marry Constance Clary and use her father's aristocratic influence with the treasury and Gideon's success in court to become Chancellor of the Exchequer. Though he knows he competes for Constance and the treasury position with the wealthy, titled Jarvis, Gideon will do what it takes, including putting a downpayment on an expensive London townhouse.

Gideon catches nimble pickpocket Lily Masters trying to steal his watch, but she escapes. Later Lily's bad luck continues when she is jostled trying to pick someone's pocket and is caught. Gideon rescues her by "buying" her from her captor at the cost of his townhouse downpayment. He feels she owes him and since she speaks like an aristocrat he decides to use her to make Constance jealous. However, when he brought Lily and her ten-year-old sister Alice into his life, Gideon did not realize how they would pick apart his heart and plan through love.

Lily refreshes this pleasant Eliza Doolittle Regency romance though readers will agree with Gideon that she is a pathetic thief. The hero is interesting as he struggles with his growing feelings to his "guest" and her sister that runs contrary to his master plan while the sacrificing-for-her-sister Lily is a great counterpoint to the selfish Constance. Though the coincidence of her failing twice with Gideon there on both occasions is a stretch, fans will accept this happenstance as the catalyst to a wonderful love story.

Harriet Klausner