A quick read. Nothing out of the usual for Krentz's book s in this series. But it's suspenseful, fun and I do like the dust bunnies. The characters are pretty standard and so is the plot. The villain was a little out there to believe it could have orchestrated anything but you have to suspend all disbelief in her books. The plots have no relationship to reality. But I read them nonetheless. ( )

This book is one of Jayne Ann Krentz's science fiction Harmony books when a group of humans left earth and landed on the planet Harmony and set up a base there. But the curtain between the planet and earth would close and these colonists would be stuck with each other, for better or worse. Aliens had once lived on this planet long ago and left it. They are believed to have lived underground in the catacombs that are made of some kind of green mineral. Over the years, the humans began to develop psi abilities which allowed them to use amber to "rez up" things such as cars, microwaves, cell phones, locks, etc... Some would develop particularly strong psi talents that required the use of amber to do, such as tuning amber (it has a unique frequency and if you go into the catacombs without tuned amber you will wander around until you go mad and die), read auras, handle and create "ghosts", or UDEMs (electrical energy that manifests in the form of a ghost) in the catacombs, music talents, botany talents, the ability to find and handle minerals, the ability to use alien technology. The list is pretty endless. There are also dust bunnies, mysterious creatures with an endless apatite, who come and go as they please, collect the oddest things and form attachments with humans. They have the loyalty of a dog who always knows when you need him and the independent streak and the insistence that you take care of his needs first of a cat. They're adorable.

When Lyra Dore first started receiving the purple orchids with the card "We belong together" she knew they could only have come from one man: Cruz Sweetwater, the man who broke her heart and her bank account three months ago when his family took over an amber ruin that she had found and shown to him believing him to be a buyer under another name. Instead, he reported it to the government, who in turn gave the contract to Amber Inc. to take care of, which is his family's mining company. She went broke trying to sue him in court to get the claim back. It also turns out that the Sweetwaters and the Dores have a long history of not liking each other. The Dores have no luck, while the Sweetwaters are lucky as hell.

At an art gallery, Lyra spots Cruz and he comes over and insists he needs to talk to her. She thinks this is when he is going to give his big apology and beg her to come back to him, but no, there are five men trapped inside of the ruin and no one can open the trapdoor, would she help? He also still needs someone to tune the amethyst amber they found in the ruins and she is the only one they've found qualified to do so. Lyra can tune amber of any kind and do special things with it. The Sweetwaters are also amber tuners but they often have a second ability too: a hunter talent of some sort. Cruz can generate a psi fog confusing your senses by using his obsidian amber. He can also hunt down a psi print someone left behind. They also know, quite quickly when they meet them, who the person is they are so supposed to be with forever. And for Cruz that is Lyra.

Cruz asks her out to dinner the next night and Lyra's friend and the gallery owner, Nancy convinces her to go. Nancy handles Vincent's, Lyra's dust bunny, art work. They sell it under a false name and some mysterious buyer has been buying them up. The money has been going toward paying the bills Lyra owes after losing the court case. After dinner, they are attacked by two thugs who produce some ghosts. They want to kidnap Lyra and take out Cruz. But Cruz takes them both out and calls in the Ghost Hunters Guild to have them deal with them and get any information out of them that they can. Lyra was caught in his fog when it happened and she thought she was having another one of her hallucinations that she has been having. They happen during the day and everything looks warped and nightmarish.

Cruz tells her that the feeling she had was caused by him and his talent. He also tells her that the men getting trapped are just the latest incident at Amber Inc. One of the relics was stolen and a lab tech was murdered. He believes that someone is setting her up and he plans to stick to her like glue til this is sorted out and then forever after that because she's the girl for him. He may not have sent the orchids, but he tells her his feelings for her never stopped. The only problem is that his company seems to really need her services and maybe he'd say anything to get them. Will she ever be able to trust him again?

Lyra is a real stubborn mule who refuses to believe anything Cruz or his family says about him having a broken heart over her or him telling her that in his family they know when they meet the one and she is meant to be his. She just thinks it's about hot sex and getting her to work the amber. The two fight like cats and dogs sometimes, neither willing to give an inch. But what could you expect from a Dores and a Sweetwater?

This book is really great and lives up to the expectations from the other books in the series. As usual, you don't need to read the other books in the series to read this one, but they are worth reading. For once you start off with the man already knowing that he belongs to the woman and has a plan in place to get her back. That she doesn't follow the plan is what makes the book so much fun. These two were a real treat to read about and Cruz's family was quite interesting too (Big Jake the cantankerous grandfather and Jeff the cousin who wants to be the first to leave the family business and work for the police). This was a real page turner and full of surprises. I can't recommend it enough. ( )

As rival families the hero and heroine aren't forbidden lovers but they are certainly an unlikely pair. Despite this, the heroine was genuinely in love with the strong calm and composed hero-that is, however, until he betrayed her by stealing her discovered ruin. In doing so, he destroyed her trust in him and they went their separate ways. Now, he's back. He's stuck in the position of needing her help but also trying desperately to right past wrongs and get her to give him a second chance. The fact that he's such a cool customer makes it hard to judge his true motives and it's only fair for her to distrust him still-even though she's longed for his apology so she can forgive him. In in process of helping the hero with her stone ruin- she's drawn into the conspiracy of stolen artifacts and murder. I liked the first half of the story. I felt the chemistry between the characters was nice and the sexual tension kept the spark alive. The hero was cool. He was calm and always in control and I enjoyed seeing the glimpses of genuine remorse in the stone faced mask he presented to the world. I liked the heroine. The fact that she was proud and too stubborn to easily forgive the hero was a check in her favor. But despite this, she secretly longed for him to make amends because she loved him and still loves him so much. But unfortunately I felt the 2nd half fizzles a little bit. The tension between the two was lost and in became a little bland. Again, the characters began to talk at each other rather than to each other. There's a different. Most of the dialog was questions and speculation about the case- very little romance was expressed after they began sleeping with each other. That was another thing, my god were the sex scenes dull. It was rated G and that's not something I want to read about. Part a goes to part b but with ZERO passion. I don't honesty think I've read a worse serious of sexual encounters before-they were that bad. It would have been better if this was just made into a clean book and the sex was kept out- it would have at least added somewhere to the mystery. ( )

It was great to return to the world of Harmony. Jayne does the paranormal and mystery well. She brought in the Arcane Society so that she could lead in to a tie with a trilogy she has planned. The trilogy looks like it will be interesting and the last one comes back to Harmony. ( )

Pretty good. I thought the heroine was a little too easy going though. I love all of the Harmony books, but the "I hate the guilds" heroines are getting a little old and recycled. However, it was still an enjoyable read. ( )