"TOUR DE FORCE BY A MASTER OF ROMANTIC SUSPENSE"

As a long time fan of Jayne Ann Krentz I look forward to each new book with both excitement and trepidation. After all, JAK has set the bar high for herself by writing some of the best books in the genre (not to mention some of my favorite 'comfort' reads) e.g., FAMILY MAN, PERFECT PARTNERS and TRUST ME among many others.

As I opened LIGHT IN SHADOW I noticed the subtitle "A WHISPERING SPRINGS NOVEL". I assume that this was the first of several books JAK plans about Whispering Springs, AZ. When I finished the book I was cheering that we would have more books about these wonderful characters and their friends.

LIGHT IN SHADOW opens with one of JAK's patented exciting first chapters, I was hooked and literally didn't put the book down till I finished the last page at 2 AM. This is a complex book with a multilayered plot that will keep the reader turning the pages rapidly. Romance fans will be happy that the couple always stays front and center and their relationship never takes a backseat to the action.

Zoe Luce is an interior designer with a special 'gift': she can sense emotions and violence in a seemingly empty room. When she tours the home of a potential client she is nearly knocked to her knees by the 'screaming' walls in his bedroom and fears that her new 'perfect client' may have murdered his wife.

Zoe hires P. I. Ethan Truax to investigate whether the client's wife is alive and well, and the nonstop adventure of LIGHT IN SHADOWS is well launched.

Zoe is a complex yet very strong and likable heroine, who with her best friend Arcadia is an escapee from a very private mental hospital. The kind of place rich people send relatives who are an embarrassment or merely inconvenient. For a hefty fee, Dr. Ian Harper is happy to keep them drugged and locked up. Zoe is hiding from both her relatives and the mental institution and she again turns to Ethan when she realizes that someone has found her.

Ethan Truax is one of the most unusual heroes in the romance genre. A true Knight even if his armor is slightly tarnished. Ethan has been married before, this isn't unusual in contemporary romance; but Ethan is a THREE time loser! It quickly becomes obvious that he is not a bad husband prospect, just a bad picker of wives. Ethan's last wife left him when his investigation into his brother's death prompted some rich businessmen in LA to take revenge by driving him into bankruptcy. Starting over in Whispering Springs, he is helping his sister-in-law Bonnie raise her two boys and it is obvious that Ethan is capable of great commitment with the right woman.

Ethan quickly comes up with a plan to protect Zoe from her nemeses by marrying her. He tells her that they will get divorced when the danger is past. After all, what is one more divorce to him? Of course, there are flaws with this plan--the main one being that Zoe and Ethan are enjoying great sex and it is obvious they are falling in love, even if they do not realize it.

JAK has always had a deft hand with creating realistic children and I really enjoyed Ethan's relationship with his nephews Jeff and Theo. Their preoccupation with both pizza and big screen TV rang true for boys their ages and Ethan's love and commitment to them also rang true.

The secondary characters in Whispering Springs are all interesting and the budding secondary romances show promise. One of the joys of this book is the male and female friendships. This couple does not exist in a vacuum. They have jobs and friends and they turn to those friends for both help and advice. JAK has a deft ear for dialogue and humor and I really enjoyed the couple's interaction. I especially enjoyed the male bonding of Ethan, Singleton and Stagg. These three men are basically lone wolves, but are the type of men who are long on integrity and can be counted on in a crunch. They all show promise of being 'typical' JAK heroes: old fashioned men of strong integrity and iron will who are also terrific in bed and I look forward to seeing more of them in future books. The tantalizing hints of Arcadia's story show great promise and I look forward to reading more about her.

The Whispering Springs series is structured like a mystery series with the couple's relationship not fully realized at book's end, but one knows with JAK that the couple will ultimately find true love and unlike some mystery authors have done recently, JAK will NOT kill off the hero after a few books. For romance readers, LIGHT IN SHADOW is very much a romance novel; while there is lots of action, the people never get lost in the plot and the developing love and friendships made for an extremely satisfying read.

Reviewed by Linda Hurst
Posted January 3, 2003

Read an Excerpt

Summary

Zoe Luce is a successful interior designer in the Arizona town of Whispering Springs who's developed an unusual career specialty-helping recently divorced clients redesign their homes, to help them forget the past and start anew. But Zoe knows that some things can't be covered up with a coat of paint. And when she senses that one of her clients may be hiding a dark secret, she enlists P.I. Ethan Truax to find the truth.

Working together, they solve the mystery . . . and barely escape with their lives. But Ethan's exquisite detection skills are starting to backfire on Zoe: she never wanted to let him find out about her former life; she never wanted to reveal her powerful, inexplicable gift for sensing the history hidden within a house's walls; she never wanted him to know that "Zoe Luce" doesn't really exist. She never wanted to fall in love with him.

Now, no matter how much she resists, Ethan may be her only hope-because the people she's been running from have found her. And just when Zoe dares to dream of a normal life and a future with the man she loves, her own past starts to shadow her every step-and threatens to take her back into a nightmare.