| Zoe Luce has gone to great lengths to appear as normal as possible. She changed her name and moved to Whispering Springs, AZ to make a fresh start and leave all who knew her behind. However, it is hard to appear normal when walls start screaming at her in her new client's bedroom. Zoe has always had sensitivity to rooms where great emotions were felt and she knows that something terrible happened in that room. She has a sinking suspicion that her new client killed his wife in that room. Zoe isn't sure what to do so she hires Ethan Truax, the new private investigator in town to find her client's wife, but Ethan is suspicious of Zoe and is determined to find out more about her.
Ethan knows that Zoe is not what she seems, especially after he finds her client's wife buried in the backyard, but he cannot seem to break through her shell - until Zoe gets a blackmail note. When Ethan finds out that Zoe was imprisoned in a mental hospital by her dead husband's family, he knows that he has to protect her. He is not sure why, but it is just something that he does. When his brother was murdered, he lost his career, his third wife, everything to bring his rich and powerful killers to justice - and it was worth it. Ethan, too, is starting over and he thinks that he has found the fresh start that he wants in Zoe. However, Zoe and Ethan are way too stubborn and afraid to share their hopes and dreams with each other. Will they admit their love before more lives are ruined? I enjoyed this book more than I have enjoyed a Jayne Ann Krentz book in a while. I really felt that Krentz was making an effort to differentiate her characters from other books that she had written and not do the stereotypical quirky heroine with stoic, incommunicative hero. I really liked Zoe and found her to be quite normal (aside from the screaming walls thing) and Ethan was much more in tune with himself than most of the other heroes out there. My only complaint was that there were a lot of side plots going on in the book and Krentz didn't have time to follow up on all of them in a satisfactory fashion. I think that it would have been better for this book to have been split into two so that the characters and the plot could have been more developed. Still, if you enjoy Krentz, I think you will like this one and it is worth your time to check it out from the library or buy from a used bookstore. | ||
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Plot & Themes Time/era of story Inner struggle subplot Yes Struggle with... Hidden Identity/Secret Motive Yes Is really... - magical powers/identity If one lover chases another... - he chases after her Main Male Character Profession/status: Age/status: - 20's-30's Sex makes him Main Female Character Age/status: - 20's-30's Profession/status: Magical/mental powers of main antagonist: Effect of sexing Unusual characteristics: Setting United States Yes The US: - West Small town? Yes Small town people: - nice, like Andy/Opie/Aunt Bee Misc setting - Fancy Mansion Writing Style Accounts of torture and death? - moderately detailed references to deaths What % of story is romance related? - 60% How explicit is the sex? - descript of kissing - actual description of sex Focus of story - equally on him and her How much dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog How much sexing? - 3-4 sex acts |
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