Review: The Smoke Thief by Shana Abe

From the Back Cover:

Only a man who was pure magic could catch her...

For centuries they've lived in secret among northern England's green and misted hills. Creatures of extraordinary beauty, power, and sensuality, they possess the ability to shape-shift from human to dragon and back again. Now their secret - and their survival - is threatened by a temptation that will break every boundary...

My Thoughts:

The story begins with a dramatic and lyrical telling of the legend of the drakon. It's really very beautifuly written and really draws the reader into a seductive world of mist and magic.

     This was the legacy the drakon had left behind with their castle: one son and one daughter, and from them generations of new life to dwell amid the mist and haunt the Others below, until they learned the secrets of their enemies. Until they learned to become them...to look as they did, to breathe and eat and speak as they did. To plod the earth as the Others did, all the while hiding their true faces, their true hearts.

In eighteenth-century England, a rare breed of creature, the drakon, struggles to stay true to the old ways of their race while avoiding detection in an increasingly modern world. Very few are permitted to leave the boundaries of their secluded shire, but when reports of a bold jewel thief in London with unique talents that cause the press to dub him The Smoke Thief, reach the Elder Council, the drakon realize that someone has escaped them. Christoff "Kit" Langford, Earl of Chasen and leader of the drakon, sets out on a risky mission to use the clan's Herte diamond to lure the thief into a trap to be transported back to the shire for punishment. But Kit's in for a surprise, for the Smoke Thief is not a man at all, but a woman - and one he never thought to see again.

When Rue Hawthorne discovered at the age of seventeen that she posessed a talent no other female drakon had ever had before, she faked her death to escape the restrictions of the shire. She's boldly lived among humans ever since, testing the limits of her powers, but she's about to take one step too far, and the consequences could prove to be disastrous to the secret clan of the ancient drakon. When the Herte disappears, Rue is forced to help Kit track it down. Though she doesn't trust him, she can't deny her attraction to him or the power of the bond that grows between them as they endanger themselves in an effort to protect the clan.

This is a sexy and imaginative tale of romance and adventure. I've read shape-shifting dragon stories by several other authors, and The Smoke Thief is a stand-out among them, seamlessly blending a tale of old-world magic with eighteenth-century London society. Elegantly written, smart, sensuous and highly recommended.

My Rating:  4 Stars out of 5