Rating: 
Summary: a paranormal tale way ahead of the pack
Review: After Dark is the prequel to After Glow - just out recently under the Castle name. It was a super paranormal/off-world tale that I really adored and thought it a great, vibrant tale, much in the old Krentz mold. Strangely, it was not received well by her fans at the time - before the big Paranormal Romance boom. Its reception was so cold that her publisher put off putting out anymore in this series for nearly four years. I guess the Paranormals burning up the charts caused them to rethink that line, and they brought out the sequel to After Dark - After Glow - which received great reviews. My, my what a time frame can mean to the readers mind?
After Dark was a great Off-World tale of Harmony, where earth travelers colonized and then were cut off from Earth connections when the "curtain" closed. (See Amaryllis, Zinnia and Orchard, books set on the same planet). A race of aliens once lived on the planet, leaving behind vast underground ruins, all protected by "trap" illusions. It takes a special sort of "detangler" to derazzle the traps that were known to fry people's minds. Lydia Smith is a detangler for an archaeologist team working in the eerie green glowing underground. When something goes wrong, Lydia finds herself without a job or a professional reputation. In comes Emmett London, who is tracking down lost antiques. He hires Lydia as a consultant. Alien ghosts and "traps" start haunting the couple left and right as it's obvious someone doesn't want the team to solve the riddle of the missing alien artifacts. Lydia and Emmett sizzle. This was one paranormal that was ahead of the pack.
Super use of Multi-POV (Point of View), the way all romances should be written!
Rating:
Summary: Another winner!
Review: I finished the book within twelve hours of buying it, unwilling to put it down. It has all the elements of Jayne Castle at her best, handled confidently and without a misstep. The book is set in the same locale as the short story in Charmed, Cadence City. The heroine, Lydia, is a feisty, intelligent ex-academic trying to get her career back on track and discover who murdered a friend of hers. Emmett London is in town looking for his missing nephew. Their talents are complementary, tangler and ghost hunter. They join forces to investigate while skirting cautiously around their attraction to each other. The book works well as futuristic romantic suspense, a genre sometimes tricky to pull off. The mystery is solved by the end of the book, but there are enough loose ends (including a lack of explicit commitment between the two lovers) to lead one to expect a sequel. I, for one, will be counting the months (and scanning her website), hoping for more adventures and answers to some of the unanswered questions at the end of After Dark.
Rating: 
Summary: Another winner!
Review: I love JAK's futuristic books and this one is no exception. Loved the characters; cannot wait for the sequel.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best Harmony books
Review: I really enjoyed AFTER DARK. The heroine of this futuristic tale, Lydia, has many modern day problems: her boss (and ex boyfriend) took credit for her work as a para-archeologist, a potential health problem got her fired, then most of her friends faded away. On her way to rebuilding her work life, with little or no plans for a personal one, she must deal with a murder, suspicious trade unions and her first real para-archeologist client: an alpha male hero named London. This book needs to be the start of a series not only because it is a great combination of romance, suspense, and science fiction with interesting characters; but because the book left many questions unanswered. Quite a tease this book is. The combination of union and academic politics allowed external tension to complement the romantic tension between the lead characters. AFTER DARK gives a well-balanced male perspective as opposed to cliched hero behavior. The book also didn't succumb to "convenient science fiction" that plagues so many para-normal romances. No laws of physics were violated and chemical and physical events could be explained to a plausible level. One of the best parts of this book is the ending. Without giving away too much (it is after all a romance) Lydia and London don't ride off into the sunset. They have their own concerns and personality quirks that stop the ending from becoming sugary while still very romantic.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed!
Review: I usually enjoy Jayne Castle books (Amanda Quick and JAK as well) but this one was boring! I could not get into the characters. I ended up skiming through just to get it done. A waste of money.
Rating:
Summary: Not up to her usual standards¿
Review: Not up to her usual standards... I usually like Jayne Castle (in any of her pseudonyms, JAK or Amanda Quick) even though her stories tend to be very similar. They usually mean a fun, light, quick read. After Dark had many elements of her previous books, but falls short on the "good read" factor. Emmett and Lydia are good characters, well written and Ms. Castle's typical yin-yang, ego-id couple. They have some great verbal sallies, but that is about the only thing that kept this book together. There are so many loose ends; I don't know where to start. Ms. Castle would lead up to some interesting points, and then lose that thread in the story. What was Emmett's background? We got some teasers but no answers. Lydia loses 48 hours of her life, and throughout the whole story, I was waiting for this to tie back into the plot. Not only did it not tie back into it, we never learned what those 48 hours were about, just that she "lost" them. An old antique curio cabinet brings Emmett to Lydia in the first place, what happens to it, what's in it, etc? Lydia has some pretty deep-set prejudices against "ghost hunters" and guild bosses in the story (both of which Emmett happens to be). For a smart lady, these prejudices make her seem pretty small minded and unintelligent. As can be seen here on the various reviews, there is some confusion about the location of this story too. Yes, this is a planet that was inhabited by humans when the "curtain" was up, like the one in Zinnia, Orchid and Amaryllis, but this planet (Harmony) is not the same planet. Similar paranormal traits are transferred onto these colonists, but they are not the same. Because it is the same "curtain" as the previous books, it would be easy to assume that this is the same planet and same powers as her previous books. This is not the case and leads the reader to some confusion. Amber is the key to their "channeling" as opposed to another human like her "Flower" series or her Gifts of Gold/Gifts of Fire books. Overall, development was absent. There was not enough background building, or world building for this to be a good sci fi, and the romance is strangely lacking in this story. Not one her best efforts and I sincerely hope there will be a sequel to answer some of these questions...
Rating:
Summary: Great story!!
Review: Of all Jayne Castle's books, I love this the most. Oh, her other books (Zinnia, Orchid, Amaryllis) are okay, but somehow they sound the same once you read all three of them. 'After Dark' is rather different. The first time I read this book, I was kinda frustrated with the fact that so many 'jargons' are introduced, that made the first few pages rather confusing and 'messy'. But when you go deeper into the book, you will be amazed at how the story unfolds - the ghost hunters, the ghosts, ghost duels, the illusion traps - very, very creative story-telling here. Oh, and I especially love Lydia's pet dust bunny, Fuzz. Very cute, with his 'daylight eyes' and 'hunting eyes' and the fact that it is addicted to, of all things, pretzels. Very good story telling here, believe me.
Rating:
Summary: Good Light Read, a little less in the Romance Department
Review: The thrill of a romance and the satisfaction of a good sci-fi. The premise deals with a planet where the occupants originally came from earth, but have been cut off from it for a couple generations. The settlers now have their own, different planetary and genetic history that create the background for this story. I recommend it to Laurell Hamilton/Anita Blake fans and to Dara Joy/Dark series fans. It is a favorite sci-fi romance mystery and I am sorry to see that others have given it so little credit for a successful change in venue. I would love to see another book(s) based on these characters or simply using the same background.
Rating: 
Summary: A nice change from your standard romance
Review: Unlike your standard romance which usually takes place in the past (usually England or Scotland) or out west where the cowboys still roam, this novel takes place on the distant world of Harmony. It is a slightly futuristic world where paranormal abilities are a plus and most of the world's power revolves around stones that hold incredible energy for those who can control it. It is on this world that we meet Lydia Smith, a former paranormal archeologist whose past has left her "psychically crippled". Although she feels she is perfectly capable of carrying out her duties she has been blacklisted from her profession as unstable. Currently working at a bizarre museum reminiscent of Ripley's Believe It or Not; Lydia is hired by the very wealthy and powerful Emmett London to help him recover a stolen family artifact that was brought with his family from Earth centuries ago. It is during her investigation of the theft that Lydia comes under assault from unknown rogue psychics. Someone is trying to stop her from discovering the location of the antique at all costs. The characters of AFTER DARK are interesting and entertaining and despite the sometimes awkward writing I found the book downright fun. I like more mystery than sex in my romance books and found just the right combination in this novel. Unfortunately in most romance novels, the relationship often overwhelms the storyline and throws all plot out the window. This plot did get a little complicated at times even for Ms. Castle to keep up with. The techno-speak created for the sci-fi scenario got a little heavy at times, but overall I found it an interesting diversion from the standard romance genre.
Rating:
Summary: I love her harmony books!
Review: Was lucky I read After Dark and After Glow at the same time, so I had the whole tale there. I presume there will be another AFTER book, since she does trilogies these days. And I will be eager for it. This is Jayne Anne at her best. She is so fresh and has such power in her writing, much like her writing of about 10 years ago. The characters are so strong and funny.
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