The Dream Thief by Shana Abé

Series: Drakon Series, Book 1

Genre: Historical Romance, Fantasy

Copyright: 2007,

Pages: 368

Rating:  4/5

Review: The Dream Thief is book two of the Drakon Series and I loved this book as much as its predecessor, The Smoke Thief
Zane, who we knew as the scraggly lil thief who hung around Rue in book one is now all grown up. This book takes place quite a few years after the first one. Rue and Kit are settled in Darkfirth and have kids of their own.
The youngest among them is Amalia or Lia, a drakon who everyone believes has none of their gifts and cannot transform either to smoke or dragon form. But Lia hears a diamond sing to her and she dreams of the future - a future with Zane.

It is the diamond, Draumr, that forms the basis of this story - Zane is asked to retrieve it and Lia, having seen what the future holds for everyone involved,  gets together with Zane to try and change what she knows is going to happen.

As with the previous book, i'm in love with Shane Abé's writing. The words flow beautifully and it really feels like a fairy tale. I loved how the story of the past drakons have similarities to some parts of Zane and Lia's stories. I kept drawing parallels and wondering if the same thing would happen to these two.

Once, there were more of us.
Once we roamed the skies unfettered, masters of the four winds. We chased the sun and devoured the moon, sprinkled across the heavens like fierce, relentless stars. That was our right and our destiny,
and none could survive our bright-eyed devastation.
We were splendor and smoky death.
We were drákon.

 I have to admit when I read this, I found it a bit weird pairing Zane with Lia since he was 11 when he met Rue, and Rue now has kids who are teenagers themselves. So Zane, but rough math, would be bout 15-20 years older then Lia. Considering The Boyfriend is much older than me, I don’t really find this weird, but in Lia's case, it was one of the first things that crossed my mind.

I feel now that this review is full of cryptic clues and that’s because I'm trying not to give away any spoilers. This was a really good read which I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm not sure why it took me so long to get to it, especially since I loved the first one so much. Shana Abe wonderfully combines the legends and old stores of the drakon with the current - giving the reader a beautiful insight into the world she has built and ensuring you come back for more. I definitely will.