"Terrific Romantic Suspense"

Crafty romantic suspense writer Jayne Ann Krentz is back again, this time with a tale chock full of greed, deceit, and unlikely romance. Interior designer Zoe Luce is quietly living her life in Whispering Springs, Arizona when a client asks her to redesign the master bedroom of his residence. But Zoe sometimes feels things that others don't, and the walls in this room "scream" that something terrible happened there.

Deciding to hire a P.I. to trace the whereabouts of the client's ex-wife, Zoe hires Ethan Truax, who just took over his uncle's one-man P.I. business. Two more unlikely lovebirds would be hard to find, but Ms. Krentz credibly shows that while they are physically attracted to one another, their underlying integrity is what makes their relationship click.

And finding the locale of the missing ex-wife is just the beginning of this suspenseful novel, as Zoe hires Ethan to discover who is blackmailing her to prevent them from revealing that she changed her name after she and friend, Arcadia Ames, escaped from the rest facility, Candle Lake Manor. Committed to the Manor by her deceased husband's family, Zoe is intent on staying free until she can expose her brother-in-law's role in her husband's death at the next board meeting.

With believable romance, spellbinding suspense, and several intertwined plotlines, this latest from author Jayne Ann Krentz is one of her best yet.

Reviewed by Sheri Melnick
Posted January 4, 2003

Read an Excerpt

Summary

Zoe Luce is a successful interior designer in the Arizona town of Whispering Springs who's developed an unusual career specialty-helping recently divorced clients redesign their homes, to help them forget the past and start anew. But Zoe knows that some things can't be covered up with a coat of paint. And when she senses that one of her clients may be hiding a dark secret, she enlists P.I. Ethan Truax to find the truth.

Working together, they solve the mystery . . . and barely escape with their lives. But Ethan's exquisite detection skills are starting to backfire on Zoe: she never wanted to let him find out about her former life; she never wanted to reveal her powerful, inexplicable gift for sensing the history hidden within a house's walls; she never wanted him to know that "Zoe Luce" doesn't really exist. She never wanted to fall in love with him.

Now, no matter how much she resists, Ethan may be her only hope-because the people she's been running from have found her. And just when Zoe dares to dream of a normal life and a future with the man she loves, her own past starts to shadow her every step-and threatens to take her back into a nightmare.