Amaryllis

Author: Jayne Castle
Published: October 1996 (Pocket Books)
Category: Paranormal Romance
Series: St. Helens #1
Rating: 6/10

It's so funny how I don't have problems reading non-contemporary romances that were written over a decade ago. This is another of Jayne Ann Krentz's alien world-paranormal romances, but set St. Helens, another Curtain-colony, before she started writing books set on Harmony.

As this is one of those reviews that I've started and put off for a couple weeks, here's the cover blurb:

Amaryllis Lark is a beautiful psychic detective on St. Helen's, an Earth colony recently cut off from the mother planet. Lucas Trent, the rugged head of Lodestar Exploration, isn't keen on the prim and proper type and Amaryllis is excruciatingly proper. But a hunch leads the pair to a wild murder investigation and a red-hot love affair inevitably follows. The affair surprises them both - Amaryllis is shocked and Lucas is delighted. But can extraterrestrial evil keep them apart?

Some corrections to the blurb: Amaryllis isn't a detective. She's a prism for hire (explained below). And there's no extraterrestrial evil. It's more like a psychic vampire from St. Helens' popular fiction.

Apparently, the buzz word on St. Helens is "synergy," like "resonate" and its various "rez" forms on Harmony. As I've only heard the word "synergy" in relation to business, it did distract me several times while reading. Psychic talents are a little ambiguous in this series, probably because it's Castle/Krentz's first psychic paranormal romance. Amaryllis Lark, our heroine, is a prism, meaning that her talent is an inactive ability that helps those with active psychic abilities focus so they can use their talents for sustained amounts of time. Without a prism, nobody can use their abilities for more than a few seconds. Lucas though, is an off-the-charts illusion talent. He doesn't like to publicize his powerful talent because (like in other Krentz books), characters with unusual powers are afraid of what society will think of them with these freakish talents, until their perfect mate comes along.

I see certain things that have been used in Krentz's later novels, such as the matchmaking services for psychics, and a psychic power scale with 10 being highest (both seen in White Lies), and the idea that strong talents don't get matched. Of course I wasn't surprised when Amaryllis and Lucas were matched by the most expensive service in town, Psynergy Inc. They were practically rigging the results because after they met each other, they started listing the other's qualities on their list of desirable features in their match. I thought the desire for the perfect marriage agency match was a lot like making a good marriage in a historical romance.

Amaryllis was a good start to building a new world, but I wasn't that crazy about Amaryllis and Lucas. Something slightly missed the mark for me. Maybe it was her annoying relatives. The book also set up for the next two books in the series, with heroes who're friends of Lucas.