Jayne Ann Krentz
Publisher: Harlequin HQN
Pages: 352
Reviewer: Sandra Scholes
Blurb:
Love never goes by the book…
VELVET TOUCH
Lacey Seldon is determined to cut loose from her librarian past. An island paradise in Puget Sound seems the perfect place to find liberation…until she meets Holt Randolph. He's unlike any man she's ever met, with a touch that makes her hunger for more. But offering him her heart might be more than she can bear. Will it bring her to her knees—or into his arms?
RENAISSANCE MAN
Rare-book dealer Alina Corey chooses to live like the heroine of her favourite Renaissance book, presiding over a court of glittering literati, and keeping a witty distance from love. But her perspective shifts when Jared Troy, a combative history scholar, suddenly challenges her to a passion that's larger-than-life. His powers of persuasion are formidable—and his talents incredible. When he turns his seductive charm on Alina, her careful plans don't stand a chance.
Review:
When one story isn't enough, two will do. as in this compilation of stories by Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Stephanie James. In fact Krentz writes novels in different genres under several pseudonyms; romantic suspense as Amanda Quick, and others as Jayne Castle.
In Velvet Touch, Lacey Seldon wants to get away from it all and set up in her own place. At twenty-nine, Lacey feels she wants to make the most of her life and being a librarian isn't what she wants to spend her life doing. As she's in a "good job" and up for promotion, her co-worker thinks she is crazy to quit. Where she is, she thinks she might not ever find the perfect man, so she sets her sights further away, leaving her co-workers, friends and parents behind. Puget Sound is the sort of place she could settle down in, and though she knows her trail could be a hard one, it may yield results.
It is her job hunting that will get her what she needs, but she doesn't expect to bump into the stunningly handsome Holt Randolph, who just happens to be the owner of Randolph Inn. At first, she doesn't think she will have much in common with a man who has inherited a hotel business and wants to stay where he is. Randolph's charm rubs off on her more than she thinks though, even after she can't push aside the thoughts of her husband who left her and the life she left behind. She needed to start again, and the story is a steady one with bouts of humour. Lacey is reluctant at first around Randolph, though she starts to lower her inhibitions. Her intention to become a new woman, one who wants to have several affairs with men who she can easily dismiss is gone, being replaced with her new man. Randolph isn't so happy at her interest in Jeremy who also works where she does as he feels she is only out to get her own back at men in general.
I like that this relationship has the potential to be a good one, but there is also the thought that they might not make it as a couple and that kind of conflict goes far to make this a good one.
Even though I preferred Velvet Touch, Renaissance Man has Alina Corey, a rare book dealer who fantasises over being one of the characters in her renaissance novels. Real love rears its head for her, but Jared Troy could bring the heroine out of her if she lets him.
Verdict: Krentz is a talented author, and both stories are good, but the first is definitely the best of the two for its characters and setting.
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