After Dark

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Summary: Jayne Castle contiunes her Curtain series....
Review: Jayne Castle (aka Jayne Ann Krentz, Amanda Quick etc) continues her "Curtain" series with a new world. The major characters still have hightened psychic senses and these senses play a main part in the story. The action is good and the romanace, of course, is great. The "hook" in this new world is discovering the archaelogical remains of previous inhabitents' and trying to get around the psychic "traps" and "ghosts" they left behind. This looks like it is going to me the first in a new series, with the same two main characters, differing from "Amaryllis", "Zinnia", and "Orchid", which had the somewhat overlapping storylines but had different main characters. I am looking forward to the next installment

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Summary: After Dark
Review: Jayne Ann Krentz, writing as Jayne Castle, has once again given her followers a science fiction/romance novel to liven up a long evening or weekend. Parapsychology, adventure and romance are combined with a dash of humor to keep the reader's interest. Once again the planet Harmony, refuge of the descendents of Earth's colonists, figures in this story of humans developing their psychic abilities to live on a planet filled with artifacts left behind by an extinct race. As para-archeologist Lydia Smith and her first major client, Emmett London, discover, there are a lot of surprises out there. Especially when they each make the wrong assumption that the other is telling the whole truth about what is going on. If you're interested in two equally strong-minded people sorting through murder, kidnapping, theft and ghost hunting, this is a must buy.

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Summary: Close the Curtain on Harmony
Review: I must say that I was extremely disappointed with 'After Dark'. Castle/Krentz/Quick is one of the most prolific authors of her time. Usually her books are witty, charming, sexy and heartbreakingly romantic. However, she becomes stale, unoriginal and dull by her tenth book in a particular vein. That being said, I was surprised that after only her fourth or is it her fifth book as Jayne Castle that we see 'After Dark.' After Dark is set on Harmony, a settlement on the other side of a space distortion that trapped settlers over 200 years ago. Anyone familiar with previous Castle books, know that this sounds suspiciously like St. Helen's, but it's a completely different planet! On Harmony the characters have completely different psychic abilities. So instead we get to learn a new set of phrases and customs. Not a problem, when done well. She did it before in 'Amaryllis', but she didn't do it here. I was halfway through the second chapter before I realized that we weren't on St. Helen's. The fact that this was not clear in the first few pages demonstrates the books second biggest flaw: it's confusing. In the St. Helen series, Castle was able to create a new and familiar world with intriguing characters. On Harmony, I found it hard to keep up with the sections of one city and the difference between para dissonance and para empheral abilities. Unfortunately, that not the worst of it. My biggest problem is the lackluster love story. I know that this isn't a romance novel per se, but the fact is this book is advertised as Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Jayne Castle. The St. Helen series didn't need that kind of billing, yet those books had a significant and exciting romantic plot. Castle's publishers are attempting to attract buyers from her considerable legion of romance fans. Those fans will find 'After Dark's" Lydia and Emmett to be quite a let down. Even worse, I think the ending is set up for a sequel featuring these two. PLEASE CLOSE THE CURTAIN.

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Summary: Jayne Does it Again!!
Review: This is another Great book in her futuristic line! It was funny, steamy, and suspensful! I thought I knew who-dunnit until I got to the end--boy was I in for a surprise!! Definately a Must Read!!

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Summary: so-so
Review: This is set in the same futuristic world as her story, "Bridal Jitters" in Charmed. It's not nearly as good. She seems more intent on the setting and the mystery the main characters, Lydia and Emmett, are trying to solve, than on the romance. There is some sexual tension and a couple love scenes, but very little emotional conflict. Lydia spends most of the book griping about people in Emmett's profession, and Emmett spends most of the book being enigmatic. At the very least, I expect a declaration of love at the end of a romance novel, if not a commitment. Maybe there will be a sequel, because this book doesn't feel finished.

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Summary: After Dark
Review: After Dark, the latest book by Jayne Krentz,writing as Jayne Castle,is well written.It has her usual snappy dialog between the two main characters,a suspenseful plot,and humor. All in all,great fun.

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Summary: My faith is redeemed
Review: I recently picked up After Dark and was completely surprised. I had been losing faith in JAK because the books were becoming repetitive. With this book and Eclipse Bay I see great books in the future. When I first read it I thought someone else must have written it because it was so different from what she had been putting out recently. I am pleased and excited to learn more. The only thing I didn't like was the even pacing that had defned the book being rushed at the end. the ending was just a little too pat for me. Otherwise it was an excellent book.

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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.

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Summary: Liked It, But Didn't Love It
Review: Let me begin this by saying that I am a huge fan of Jayne Ann Krentz in all of her various incarnations -- as Jayne Castle, Amanda Quick and herself -- and I really, really wanted to love this book. However, the relationship between the two main characters, Lydia and Emmett, didn't grab me the way that the relationships between Amaryllis and Lucas, Zinnia and Nick, and Orchid and Rafe did (and certainly not the way the relationship between Molly and Harry in Absolutely, Positively did). I just didn't care whether Lydia and Emmett were together at the end of this book. More character development would have helped -- if I knew them better, I probably would have cared more about them. Also, issues were dangled before us (what happened to Lydia during her Lost Weekend, why did Emmett join/restructure/leave the guild, what's the deal with Emmett and his nephew) but weren't resolved, which I always find annoying.

Which brings me to my next point. It may just be me, but I find the paranormal activities in the Dead City stories (Charmed and After Dark) to be very hard to follow. I liked the way the focus/talent abilities in Amaryllis, Zinnia and Orchid reflected the characters' personalities and drove the stories along, but I find the tangler/hunter abilities, as well as the ghosts and illusion traps in the Dead City books to be very confusing and distracting. I keep getting bogged down trying to figure out what the heck is going on when one of the characters sees a flash of green light. Personally, I'm hoping that the next Jayne Castle book is set in New Seattle, New Portland or New Vancouver.

All that being said, however... read the book. Don't stay up all night to finish it like I did, but definitely check it out. Jayne Ann Krentz' books are like pizza -- even when they're bad, they're still pretty good.

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Summary: good but I hope there will be more of this story
Review: I liked the book but thought it was missing something.It wasn't as good as Amaryllis,Zinna,and Orchid. The plot was interesting with Lydia's quest to redeem her professional life and Emmett's search for a family heirloom that dissapeared with his nephew. While working together to solve the mystery their differing views create a definite friction between them. I thought that the characters were terrific but that they didn't start really connecting romantically until to near the end of the book. Now I am hoping that there is going to be another book with these two to develop their romance to a passionate conclusion. If that is what Ms.Castle(Jayne Ann Krentz) is planning I will be first in line to buy the second book.