3 ½ Stars ( )

Jane Hunt Writer First Steps

Set in Regency England 'The Devil's Thief'is the first in the Saints' Devils series. It is a sensuous, amusing, exciting story which features Alasdair Sharp the first of the Saint's Devils to reform.

Alasdair has no desire to change his ways until he finds a thief in his bedchamber intent on stealing the Stewart Pearl a priceless family heirloom. Inexplicably drawn to the young woman he discovers Alasdair offers her the pearl for a night in his bed.

Julianna Harte accepted in Regency society although her formative years were difficult decides to steal the Stewart Pearl in an impulsive moment. Careful to hide her true self from the world she maintains a low profile. Alasdair barely acknowledges her presence when their paths cross in society and his thoughtless attitude towards her is part of the reason she steals the pearl.

The fiery relationship between Julianna and Alasdair dominates the story. The many sensual encounters between the two are hot but integral to their emotional journey.

The pacing of the story and the plot's twists ensure an interesting read. The descriptions and characters of criminal life in Regency London are well written and create an atmospheric, sinister setting. Notable characters are Hil and Templeton who Alasdair enlists to help him retrieve the pearl and Wiley the teenage thief with a golden heart who makes this story his own.

A sensual Regency romance with a strong plot and fascinating characters an excellent way to brighten the journey to work or while away a Sunday afternoon.
'I received an ARC from Random House Publishing Group Loveswept via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review'. ( )

*I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

The Devil's Thief is the first in a series focused in three friends, known as the Saint's Devils. The name comes from the lider of the group, Sir Hilary St. John and the other devils are Roger Templeton and Alasdair Sharp. This story is focused on the latter.

It all starts when Julianna Harte, desperate because she doesn't have the money necessary to pay the rent of the home for abandoned children she has founded, decides to steal the famous Stewart Pearl, a valuable family jewel, by invading Alasdair's house at night. But Alasdair perceives a presence in his room, and when he discovers that the thief is really a woman, he makes her a proposition: if she agrees to spend the night with him in his bed, she can have the pearl. Julianna hesitates because she is a virgin, but partly for desperation and partly because she is very attracted to Alasdair, she accepts. Of course Alasdair never intended to keep his part of the deal, but he wakes up with no thief and no pearl...

Alasdair turns to the help of his best friends, Hil and Roger to discover the identity of the thief, that he knows only as Juliet, the obviously fake name the woman has given him (a detail I found to be absolutely delicious because it originated numerous lines of Romeo and Juliet to be exchanged between them), and recover the pearl.

In the meantime, Julianna looks for a fence to whom she can sell the pearl to, but being such a famous piece, only those of doubtful reputation will be interested. And it's at one of those places that she meets Wiley, a young man who recognizes her because he has two children at her home, and who ends up helping and protecting her in her task.

But lo it that, at an event organized by Hilary, Alasdair ends up recognizing his Juliet as the shy daughter of his next door neighbour. And he realizes the attraction he felt that night is still strong so he doesn't hesitate to use all his seduction techniques to convince Julianna to return the pearl to him.

Obviously the atraction turns into love to both of them, which means that Julianna is going to try to recover and return the pearl at any cost, putting herself in danger in the process. And Alasdair will have to decide which jewel is more precious to him...

The characters are well developed, not only the main ones, but also the secondary characters which are very amusing and pertinent to the story, they're not there only to make up the numbers. I especially liked Wiley, a character I think has many potential and hope to see it developed in the next books of the series.

However, there were a few things I had problems with. First of all, Alasdair's jealousies irritated me to no end. Two days after taking Julianna's virginity, he believed she had another lover (as she put it herself, how did she had the time to find a lover?). And the other thing that annoyed me was Julianna's stuberness not to ask for help and her naivety in thinking she could steal the pearl not once, but twice (I mean she was discovered the first time she tried it, right?).

Generally, I really liked this story, so much so, that I had to continue reading the next books in the series. I can hardly wait to meet the ladies that are going to turn around the heads and the lives of Hilary and Roger. ( )

The Devil's Thief started with a girl sneaking into a room, intending to steal a priceless string of pearl but she ended up being caught by the owner, Alasdair Sharpe. But instead of calling the police, he offered her to keep the pearls as long as she would spend a night in his bed. But he didn't really mean it and when he woke up with the elusive thief along with the pearls gone, he was in a panic and thus the search for the thief begin.

That does sound like the beginning of "The Dark Night Rises" except more sex scenes with the cat burglar. Oh well, in this book, Julianna need to raise enough money to keep the foundling home for the orphans but she was too afraid to ask her stepmother for help and decided to sneak into her neighbour's house for the infamous pearls. But Alasdair caught up with her after she fenced the pearls. Soon she began to feel guilty about the whole situation but the notorious criminal who she sold the pearls to began to demand more money out of her, she began to concocted a plan to get the pearls back or lose the love of the man whom she adored greatly.

Honestly, I am surprised by this book because usually these historical romance was mild with more concentration on drama. But this book is more to the erotica level. Then I realized that the author wrote books for Ellora's Cave therefore it made sense why its more steamy than your average historical romance novel. Alasdair is like the ordinary alpha male but what surprised me was how the author develop the romance between the character that started as lust. It was sweet at the end, and the story work out all around eventually and frankly quite a decent reading of the genre if you like engaging wealth of characters as it is one of the series. ( )

I've had this book for awhile and kept skipping over it thinking it would be a typical historical romance novel, but gladly I was wrong. There were no dances and no interfering matrons instead we had a reformed thief, a bumbling jewel thief, a man on a mission, two very entertaining friends and one hoodlum with a huge heart. I really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading more about these guys. Ms. Kane's books are always a great read. ( )