After Glow (Harmony) [Mass Market Paperback]

After Jayne Ann's last three efforts under her Krentz name and Quick penname, I was in despair. She is one of my favourite writers, but she had lost of heart, I feared. The books spent more time talking about food than romance, and her leads were tediously boring. In her aim to sell mainstream, she is killing her decades-long, devout romance fans with books that lack ROMANCE. Jayne needs to take time go back and read her own books such as “Wildest Hearts”, “Family Man”, and “Absolutely Positively”, to get "the mind scent back", find her roots.

That said, this was - to me - was a "make or break" book. If she did not come up with the old magic, I would likely move on to spend my monies on writers that are delivering. Well, I am SO DELIGHTED to say this book has the old Jayne Ann magic. And I hope this book is received better than the other "Harmony Books". I adored them all and see the JAK dazzle in there. It is in her off-world books “Amaryllis”, “Orchard”, “Zinnia” and “After Dark”, where you can still find the old JAK magic that pulls at the heart, that makes you smile. These books were not well-accepted, because she was AHEAD of the pack. Futuristic books with J. D. Robb, Robin D. Owens, C. J. Barry - and the new Dorchester line coming with Susan Grant and Kathleen Nance's books kicking it off - are selling like hotcakes, showing off-world books are the cutting edge. Meaning everyone else is JUST NOW catching up with JAK.

In this long awaited sequel to “After Dark” (2000), where we first met Emmett London and Lydia Smith, we pick up their lives a month after the pair had their last adventure. They have moved in together, with Emmett hoping to work Lydia into a Covenant Marriage, but fears Lydia's experience in the Alien Underground has permanently set her against "ghost-hunters" - people with the talent to channel and control the residual energy left behind by the race that once lived on New Harmony. And since Emmett is one of the best ghost-hunters, he fears this could tip their relationship into shattering. Worse, the head of the Guild - (union/government) for the ghost-hunters - has been wounded and Emmett has to step into his place to keep things running smooth.

Lydia is not happy with the limelight that is hitting Emmett as the new guild boss. especially not thrilled the press is dragging out the fact Emmett was engaged to marry the Guild's Boss wife. This prompts her to push Emmett into a MC - Marriage of Convenience - to protect him. Emmett is thrilled for he sees this as a chance to convince Lydia into making it a Covenant Marriage.

It has all the JAK special characters, the romance, the adventure that marks her best works. After being so disappointed by her last three books - and I am hoping this is a new streak starting for JAK that show she can "rez" them ghosts and fascinate us as she has for so long. It can be read alone, but you really should read “After Dark” to fully appreciate the fun. In fact, I suggest reading “Amarylliss”, “Zinnia” and ‘Orchid”, too! See JAK at her best!

Great Return to Harmony - just don't make it so long before the next visit, Jayne Ann, because this is where you are shining!

This book follows "After Dark" which includes the same characters and describes how Lydia Smith and Emmett London met. It isn't necessary to have read the first book to understand this one (in fact I read this one first and didn't have any difficulties in understanding what's going on) but it does rather give away some of the events in the first book, if you haven't yet read it.

The events in After Glow take place a month after the end of the previous book. Lydia is still working in Shrimpton's museum, is continuing her relationship with Emmett London, and is getting along quietly with her life after the excitement of the murders and the discovery of the dreamstone jar in the previous book. However she finds herself at the scene of another death - this time a former professor of archaeology who appears to have overdosed on drugs. As she waits for the police to arrive Emmett London meets up with her and she discovers that the head of the Cadence Guild, the local Ghost Hunter organisation which sometimes seems rather like its own private army, has been shot. Emmett is now acting head of the Guild, for reasons which he eventually explains to Lydia.

The first section of this book is taken up with Lydia coming to terms with Emmett's position in the Guild. She's not sure about their relationship - how seriously he takes it - and has strong misgivings about the Guild. But when she discovers there's a threat to Emmett's safety with this new position she does all she can to protect him, involving some surprising actions. The threads of events start to click together for Lydia and she realises the death of the Professor might have something to do with her 'Lost Weekend', a 48 hour amnesia that she experienced 7 months ago and which put an end to her highbrow career. When events get nasty Lydia has to fight for her safety and freedom as well as understanding more about her relationship with Emmett.

Jayne Castle (aka Jayne Ann Krentz and Amanda Quick) is good at writing books that are well paced and interesting. Her worldbuilding in this book isn't brilliant - there are a lot of irritating repetitions of things like "rez" to apparently show it's a different type of world but the whole underlying Ghosts and Traps ideas are enough and some of her writing seems to be rather silly. Still, the characters are good, particularly Lydia who is feisty and honest and appealing, and the relationship with Emmett isn't the main focus of the book, there's more about the plot and whodunit aspect to keep the reader's attention. It's a worthy sequel to the previous book and one that I can recommend.

I love jayne Castle's books, alway exciting and keeps me glued to the page. Only problem is that I cannot put it down