This is the second book in this trilogy, though it comes first chronologically. I don't really get why it was done that way. Anyhoo, same setup as book 1: Winters descendant inherited family curse, the fellow needs a dreamlight reader woman to work/fix the lamp so he doesn't go insane. I still don't really understand how this whole setup works at all.
In this case, it's Victorian London and Adelaide Pyne (the dreamlight reader) has recently returned to England after having a lot of fun working in a Wild West show. Man, I'd love to have read that book about her adventures. But now that she's back home and has made a lot of money, she's a "social reformer" and she steals girls out of brothels and runs a good secretarial school to get them jobs later. I approve. One of the local crime lords, Griffin Winters, looks her up for the whole burning lamp thing, which Adelaide Just Happens To Have after picking it up off of the bastard that tried to use her as a hooker when she was 15. (She figured it'd be useful someday...)
There's some squabbling over how her raids have become predictable and Griffin doesn't approve of her doing them anyway--especially on her obvious next target, rival crime lord Luttrell. But that blows over quickly once Adelaide fixes the whole lamp thing (note that in this case, it's pretty easily blown over and Griffin doesn't even really end up with 3 talents), because it appears that Luttrell wants her and the lamp. But for what? There's also the use of red crystals that sure as hell sound like the predecessors of Nightshade to me.
This one was okay. It's minorly interesting that a "social reformer" is getting together with a crime lord--though he's a surprisingly decent crime lord--but overall, the romance was okay. Not outstanding, but not bad either. I'm still just as confused on the whole burning lamp thing as I was the first time, and "dreamlight reader" as a power sounds like a lot more than it is--sort of psychic CSI "I can see the imprints" sort of thing. (There's also the whole "oh noes, I literally can't sleep with a man!" thing again, but it's blown over quickly, thank goodness.)
It was...okay. Three stars. Not overly memorable to me overall, but not a bad beach read.
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