The Dream Thief by Shana Abe

Valarie: Review from Romance Reviews Today:

Darkfirth, Northern England, 1768 and Carpathian Mountains 1773



Amelia Langford, youngest daughter of the Drakon Alpha, Marquess of Langford, never developed the Draokon abilities to change to smoke and then to dragon. The Drakon are an ancient people, hidden within the human population that nearly decimated them centureis ago. Now diluted with human blood, many Drakon are no longer capable of the change. Amelia is the only sibling not to develop the traits, the only one to never become a dragon. But Amelia does have gifts, one of wich she never speaks, like the song she has heard since a child, the song of the Dreamer Diamond, Draumer. And every night the future invades her dreams. In these dreams, she is blind, but hears and feels the touch of her one and only love. A voice she recognizes: Zane\'s. Amelia tells no one; for her family would never accept a human for her husband, and because she knows the legend of the Draumer. Anyone who holds the Draumer controls the Drakon.



Zane is the most notorious thief in London. As the former apprentice to the Smoke Thief, who is now the Marchioness of Langford, Zane is uncomfortably familiar with Drakon. He avoids them whenever possible, but the Marquess and Marchioness of Langford contact him wiht jobs. Now they offer him a fortune to find a diamond somewhere east of France. Where, they are not sure, nor do they know the size of the stone or who owns it. Zane accpets the commissin to finda nd buy or steal the Draumer.



Unknown to anyone, Amelia has made plans to join Zane in Europe. He will need her help to find the Draumer. For of all Drakon, the Dream Stone Draumer calls to Amelia, and she knows wehre to find it in the remote, icy mountaintops of the Carpathians at a castle called Zaharen Yce, built by dragons. She doesn\'t tell Zane that if he finds the Draumer before she does, he will destroy her family--and force her to choose between two very different futures.



THE DREAM THIEF reads like an evocative fairytale, filled with the sights, scents and tastes of life and love in the wonderful fashion and mores of the late 16th century. Ameilia and Zane\'s courtship is perilous. She is a virgin who knows too much about physical love; Zane is the jaded thief who knows nothing of love. The prose flows like a lyrical dream and the story will steal your heart.