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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Keeper for Regency fans!, July 3, 2002
This review is from: An Honorable Thief (Harlequin Historical) (Paperback)
London has two sensations in the season of 1816: A Chinese burglar and a diamond heiress, both new in town, neither of who want to be caught. The heiress is a spirited young woman who returns to England to restore her family's honour. Playing the social game, Kit Singleton, with her unconventional ideas and manners befriends and rescues damsels in distress and sparks the interest of one Hugo Devenish. He's a strong, tall and dark man, a man that a woman could easily fall in love with - but he's also a man looking for the thief. I love romance novels with thieves and mistaken identities and I love my heroines daring, unique and on the wild side. Add to that some costly artefacts, jewels and a hero that is brooding, rich and unpretentious with no regard for society's strictures and you have a mix that I find irresistible. The story is more complex than expected, surprising me with twists and turns without ever getting lost in them. I immensely enjoyed Ms. Gracie's style, not just for a story well told but for her choice of words that had me re-reading whole scenes just for the pleasure of it. It's never cute but witty, never pretentious but always vivid. This is a true find and definitely a keeper especially for regency fans.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fun and well-crafted, June 28, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: An Honorable Thief (Harlequin Historical) (Paperback)
I read this book after having read Tallie’s Knight and Gallant Waif and found this as delightful as the others. Kit Singleton arrives in London after a life spent in foreign parts with her father. She is charged with a mission to fulfill a deathbed promise she made to him. At the same time Hugo Devenish meets her and becomes curious about her past. Anne Gracie skilfully weaves a quite complex story against the background of life amongst the ton of London. Kit and Hugo are unusual characters in this setting; both loners without normal family relationships who seem to swan in and out of society functions without really belonging. They are drawn together and I love the way Hugo is captivated by Kit without consciously recognising it. In my opinion an almost perfect hero. The side characters are well-drawn with lives of their own that add depth to the story. Gracie’s writing style helps make her work so appealing to me. She uses unusually short sentences, a kind of mental shorthand, when she is depicting Hugo’s point of view, for example. Humour lurks in the background of every scene. I love her descriptive use of words - "watchdoggery" and "Sir Primrose", for example.
All in all a treat which I have already read twice.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
great chemistry, June 7, 2008
This review is from: An Honorable Thief (Harlequin Historical) (Paperback)
A friend gave me this one after I was wowed by a previous book of Anne Gracie's.
Kit Smith has just buried her father. But before he died, he extracted a promise from her that she'd go to London and restore his honor. As part of his plan, she's posing as Kit Singleton, niece of the very respectable Rose Singleton.
Hugo Devenish's role in London is twofold: to straighten up his family's affairs and to apprehend the Chinese burglar who's been preying on the gentry. When his nephew and heir announces his plans to marry Miss Singleton, heiress to a diamond mine in New South Wales, of all places, Hugo decides he must investigate Miss Singleton.
And of course, we can all guess what happens then.
In some ways, An Honorable Thief is a fairly predictable Regency romance--that Kit herself is the thief, that she'll discover the deception behind the premise she's been operating under, that she and Hugo will fall in love, and that he will catch her in the act.
But there's more to it than that, and I didn't see the biggest twist of the book coming at all.
Then, too, there's wonderful chemistry between Kit and Hugo. They're attracted to each other's personality and intelligence as well as appearance, though trust is, unsurprisingly, an issue between the two of them. I did get impatient for Kit to spill the beans to Hugo a smidgen sooner than she actually did it, but she didn't keep me waiting too long, and I didn't get too terribly irritated with her.
I believe I have 3 or 4 more Anne Gracie books in my TBR pile. I'm looking forward to them.
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