Kerry Allen

The Dream Thief by Shana Abe
Mass Market Paperback, 336 pages
ISBN: 0553588052
Available Now
Retail Price $6.99
Second in series

This book and its predecessor, The Smoke Thief, are so beautiful, I don’t know where to begin singing the praise. On second thought, maybe my singing (reminiscent of a dying cat’s caterwauling) isn’t the greatest way to praise something, so I’ll stick with the written word.

Zane is the only human allowed to move in the world of the drakon. He knows their secrets, which would earn him a death sentence if his talent as a thief wasn’t so useful to them. They enlist him to find a very special diamond. If he can do it with the scant information provided, he will receive a sum that will allow him to live like a king the rest of his days.

Lia, one of the drakon, has heard the diamond’s song all her life. For almost as long, she has had troubling dreams of the future. One thing in the dreams never changes: She and Zane are lovers.

Aside from his mental hangup (he’s a street kid, a criminal, not good enough for the beautiful princess), Zane has a more concrete reason to keep his hands off Lia: not only will the drakon kill him, they’ll kill her. (Kind of a harsh, inflexible bunch, the drakon.) However, he needs her to find the diamond. He could endure the forced proximity along the journey. He could resist his own desire. But when she offers herself freely, what’s a thief to do other than take what he can get?

When the stone’s secret is revealed to Zane, he realizes he could have everything he’s ever wanted, including Lia, and her nightmarish visions of the future threaten to become reality.

What I love about Zane: He’s a thief. He acts like a thief. He thinks like a thief. When presented with an opportunity to acquire wealth and power, the first thing he does is envision himself with wealth and power. Consequences and morality are a secondary and iffy consideration.

(I can’t stand a character who always, always, always does the good and noble and right thing and never even considers the bad one. Boring. As. Hell. Not to mention completely unrealistic. Everything you need to know about good characterization can be learned through the study of DBZ: Goku got killed five hundred times for a good reason. Gohan was a dork. Snarky little Trunks was way cooler than big mama’s boy Trunks. And Vegeta, who never made a move, bad or good, without first evaluating what was in it for him, made the whole thing worth watching. “Will he? Won’t he? He did what? What a bastard! Yay, it was a ruse! Nope, he really is a bastard. Aw, but look, now he’s redeeming himself…”)

What I love about Lia: She had no qualms about breaking rules that got in the way of what needed to be done, which nicely narrowed the gap between Spoiled Rich Girls and the Criminals They Love. She consistently took action. She went after the diamond, and she went after Zane, and there was no question either would elude her.

Typically for me, I was far more interested in the hero (I like men, what can I say…), but I felt Zane was well matched in Lia. She understands and accepts him, bounty on his head and all, and will be tough enough to stick with him when the excrement hits the ventilation device back home.

Book Three in the series, starring Lia’s brother and the drakon princess who doesn’t know her future has been decided for her (and boy, will she be pissed when she finds out), will definitely be a must-read-immediately (even if I wasn’t thrilled with the cover, which breaks the theme I’ve really liked in the first two).