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annathepiperOkay, so yeah, I knew that paranormal romances have been the Hot Thing for a while now, but I'm not terribly accustomed to running into paranormal historicals. Which is why I actually looked twice at The Smoke Thief when I picked it up on impulse--because it's a paranormal historical romance, the sort of thing I can imagine a writer whipping up if what she actually wants to write is fantasy, only romance sells better, so she writes this instead. And since it involves dragons, which are not nearly so overused in paranormals as vampires and werewolves, I decided to give this a shot.
The idea here is that there's a race of beings called the drakón, dragons that kept themselves from being wiped out by learning how to shapeshift into human form and hiding among mortals. They've done so up until the time frame of the novel, the mid-1700's, at which point we get a young halfbreed lass named Clarissa Rue Hawthorne (a.k.a. Rue) who bolts away from the tribe because she's sick and tired of being snubbed like halfbreeds generally are in these sorts of plots. She takes up being a thief in London, and in fact is an infamous thief indeed, up to and including cheerfully crossdressing into an identity as a rakish young comte if that's what it takes to make off with her loot. Only now she's been accused of stealing Herte, a gem that's precious to the drakón--and Christoff Langford (a.k.a. Kit), the head dragon, is coming after her for more reasons than one.
Generally a fun fluffy read all around. Nothing terribly surprising in the plot or characterization, but nobody was annoying and the chemistry between Rue and Kit is enjoyable. Bonus points for using dragons in a historical romance, too! Three stars.
The idea here is that there's a race of beings called the drakón, dragons that kept themselves from being wiped out by learning how to shapeshift into human form and hiding among mortals. They've done so up until the time frame of the novel, the mid-1700's, at which point we get a young halfbreed lass named Clarissa Rue Hawthorne (a.k.a. Rue) who bolts away from the tribe because she's sick and tired of being snubbed like halfbreeds generally are in these sorts of plots. She takes up being a thief in London, and in fact is an infamous thief indeed, up to and including cheerfully crossdressing into an identity as a rakish young comte if that's what it takes to make off with her loot. Only now she's been accused of stealing Herte, a gem that's precious to the drakón--and Christoff Langford (a.k.a. Kit), the head dragon, is coming after her for more reasons than one.
Generally a fun fluffy read all around. Nothing terribly surprising in the plot or characterization, but nobody was annoying and the chemistry between Rue and Kit is enjoyable. Bonus points for using dragons in a historical romance, too! Three stars.