Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

Dear Ms. Abé:

The Dream Thief is a sequel to The Smoke Thief. Lia Langford, the youngest daughter of the Earl of Chasen/Marquess of Langford (one of the two), is a dreamer. She dreams of future events and many of those events involve her lover being pitted against her family, against her friends.

Zane, former apprentice of the Smoke Thief and current thief extraordinaire, is commissioned by the Earl/Marquess and the Countess/Marchionness to obtain the Dreamer’s Stone. Whispers of the stone is reaching the ears of the drákon and the drákon must have it all costs. They are willing to pay Zane a king’s ransom if he obtains it and returns it to them.

This book moves quickly and contains some great story telling. The parts where Lia dreams of Zane forcing her to do terrible things is chilling, suspenseful and frightening. Zane is an appealing hero: roguish, living on his wits. Lia is also appealing. She’s smart, crafty and driven. If I could take out certain parts of the story, this would have been an A.

The story was narrated by some unknown person telling us the fable of a drákon who was controlled by an evil man who held the Dreamer’s Stone. The narrator also tells us the story of the hero and heroine and the narrator actually spoils upcoming sections as well as restates obvious issues. The narrator was our very own Cliff Notes summarizer inside of the book. It began to be very irritating.

Also, hello, get your titles straight. Is this the Earl and Countess or the Marquess and Marchioness. Is Lia an earl’s daughter or a step closer to the throne. When I first started the story I couldn’t figure out who the Marquess of Langford was. I looked on the website and saw that the Smoke Thief was about “Christoff Langford, Marquess of Langford . . .”

So then I picked up my book, the Smoke Thief and chapter one starts with this: “The Right Honourable Christoff René Ellery Langford, Earl of Chasen, . . .”

In the Dream Thief, you alternatively refer to Christoff as a Marquess and an Earl. Lia Langford is alternatively an earl’s daughter and a marquess’s daughter. I’m a historical neophyte. I don’t know my titles from my ass but even I know that there is a difference between an earl and marquess. The reason why I harp on this a bit is because I was so confused as to who was whom that I didn’t know if this story was about a different clan of dragons or the same clan in Smoke Thief. I had to research the issue for about 20 minutes before I could continue the book.

At the risk of being ranted out by those authors who are tired of PC ruining books, let me state I was disturbed by the fact you have young girls experiencing very sexual events: Lia in her dream sequences when she was 14 and even younger and another 11 year old girl who . . . Well, let’s just say that I was disturbed, very disturbed, by one part of the story. In fact, this part of the story so disturbed me that I had to completely push it out of my mind in order to finish the book. I could not even contemplate the ramifications of it. I’ll put it in a spoiler part of the story involves a villain taking an 11 year old girl and making the girl his wife, dressing her up with heavy rouge and makeup so that she appears older. I assume that he was violating her on a regular basis and that just made me sick. It did make the villain more villainous but I think I could have used a dose of PC here. Maybe made the girl older. Even a girl in her late teens would have been more acceptable.

I am not sure what grade to give this. It’s probably a book that those who enjoyed the Smoke Thief will like but not love. It’s definitely a paperback purchase or a library read. I’m not sure whether it’s worth the hardcover price. B-

Best regards,

Jane