"JAK at her absolute best!"

Jayne Ann Krentz is a prolific writer that gives you wonderful, light-hearted romances, rapier wit repartee and quirky characters that have quickly put her at the top of the Romance market. She started in series romance and even her earlier works so this talent emerging. Anyone could have predicted she would rise to the top. However, with WILDEST HEARTS we see Jayne Ann at her peak form.

Annie and Oliver will steal your heart. These characters draw you in and won't let you go. Annie Lyncroft runs a small boutique that handles the exotic, does not matter quite what, rugs, boxes, lamps, chests of drawers, if its odd, curious and you cannot find it anywhere else, Annie likely has it at her eclectic store. Her brother is an electronic genius, which caused him to create a business to handle his discoveries. This leads him into the realm of Oliver Rain, who funds various enterprises. Annie is immediately attracted to Oliver Rain the first time they meet at a party given by his brother, but she is disappointed when Oliver quickly leaves.

Circumstances push Annie to seek Oliver's help. She equates Oliver Rain to a panther taken on human form, so she knows she is treading on dangerous ground when she approaches him. She comes to see him several times over a month, bringing him things she thinks would spruce up his black and chrome sterile office. Her quirkiness pleases Rain, but he senses she is using the 'decorating' help as merely an excuse. He vividly remembers Annie from her brother's party, and planned to pursue her on his own timetable. Annie upsets those plans but still Rain is delighted she is coming even if the items she brings do not work for his well-ordered austere office design. Annie is quickly learning that Oliver prefers his whole life run in the same well-compartmentalised manner but she thinks he could do with a little shaking up.

She enjoyed being with Oliver because of the attraction. But she has another motive as well for seeking him out. Her genius brother has mysteriously disappeared and is feared dead. Annie will not accept that he is dead and knows he will return, so she is doing her best to protect his business, keep it safe until he comes back. Annie is not equipped to step into his shoes and run the firm but Oliver could. Oliver is a high powered businessman and a friend of her brother, so she goes to Oliver with an offer that would save her brother's firm - a marriage of convenience. Marry her, give the business investors knowledge that Oliver Rain was there taking control as part of the family. She is fairly certain Oliver will accept since he has a lot of money tied up in her brother's work.

Oliver had already decided to marry Annie. He had been slowly calculating on how to corner the colorful woman into accepting his proposal. Her schemes tosses his plans out the window taking him off balance. But Oliver Rain is not one to look this gift horse in its mouth.

Annie's terms were a marriage of convenience; they would live together, present an united front as man and wife, and get an annulment once her brother returns. Oliver may permit Annie to upset his original plans but he is not about to let her go. He makes it clear fronm the start this will be a real marriage or no marriage at all. Deep down this is fine with Annie who has already falling in love with him.

And since he said a real marriage, she feels honor-bound to mess up Oliver's staid, orderly life every chance she can get. Oliver has plans to bring down a old enemy, one that ruined Oliver's family many years ago. However, when Annie finds out Oliver's sister loves the son of Oliver's enemy, she is not about to let these young lovers get flattened by Oliver's steamroller.

She does not stop there, encouraging Oliver's Man Friday, Bolt, to take a chance on his dream to write, nor does she stop trying to bring color into Oliver's black and white world. Oliver is an elegant, quiet Alpha/Gamma male, a panther on the prowl, and Annie soon learns making deals with a big cat means you are apt to get scratched.

JAK is on beam, at her best. She just does not get any better than this.

Reviewed by DeborahAnne MacGillivray
Posted April 6, 2003

Summary

Annie Lyncroft knew her scheme was outrageous. She'd come to the elegant penthouse to meet Oliver Rain, the richest and possibly the most dangerous man in the Pacific Northwest. Annie needed this sensual, secretive corporate maverick for what she was about to propose. Marriage! With her brother Danny missing after a mysterious plane crash, Annie is struggling to protect his hot electronics company from the sharks who think he's not coming back. But fanciful, ethical Annie -- who usually runs a bizarre bric- a-brac shop knows Danny's alive, and she's determined to keep his company safe by putting his biggest investor at the helm. When Oliver actually says yes to the marriage of convenience, Annie dreamily envisions a few platonic weeks of helping him become a sensitive New Age guy. Oliver has a different plan; his cold, gorgeous eyes have been watching Annie, and he sees his chance to seduce the beautiful schemer. Love is the wild card destined to teach these two strong-willed opposites a lesson: icy control might run the business world, but all hell is about to break loose in the passionate territory of the heart.