As a reward for staying so late, my boss gave me the morning... but since I had to drive my sister, I still got at the lab early. Well, who cares, I'm going to blog. The hospital has a holiday on Monday (don't ask me what holiday it is ^_^; it just says February holiday) so I'm crossing my fingers that I won't have to come in this week-end and enjoy a LONG week-end.
**Okay, my boss just walked in and said I had the whole week-end to myself!! Wooohooo!!!
All right, enough of my life :) Onto the review now. The new twist in Keishon's TBR challenge is that for each month, there's a theme. This month's theme was DIK books from the AAR site... Unfortunately, I couldn't find any of the DIK in my TBR pile and was too lazy to get the complete list. So I chose to read White Lies by Jayne Ann Krentz instead.
White Lies by Jayne Ann Krentz
published by Putnam in January 2007
Petite, thirtysomething Clare Lancaster is a Level Ten para-sensitive-and a "human lie detector." Over the years, she's come to accept that someone with her extraordinary talents is likely to have trouble in the relationship department. And she's even resigned herself to the fact that everyone, to one degree or another, hides behind a façade. . . .
And now it seems that meeting the half sister and family whom she never knew until seven months ago was a mistake. Her father summons her from California to play a role in his business empire, and Clare doesn't intend on making the same mistake twice. But after meeting Jake Salter, Archer Lancaster's "financial consultant," Clare is convinced that things aren't what they seem. Salter's careful conversation seems to walk a delicate line between truth and deception, revealing and resisting. Something sparks and sizzles between them-something more than the usual electricity between a man and a woman.
Caught in a dizzying storm of secrets, lies, and half-truths, Jake and Clare will plunge into an investigation that demands every bit of their special gifts-together they must overcome their mutual distrust in order to unravel a web of conspiracy and murder.
Genre: paranormal romance - psychic
Series: Arcane Society, Book #2
The Story: Ugh, I started writing a summary and it turned out to be as generic as the back blurb. Meh. So let's give it another try.
Clare is the product of a one-night stand between the parents. She has just reunited with her father and his family a few months ago when her half-sister needed help. That event basically changed her life, especially when she found the body of her half-sister soon-to-be-ex-husband. Although she was not arrested by the police, she can't stop the gossips and as a result, loses her job and her fiance. Then, she is summoned by her father to Arizona where he offers her a job.
Jake Salter is a J&J agent sent down to Arizona for an undercover investigation. He is looking for a new organization who is looking to improve the Jones formula which would increase their psychic abilities and the presence of a 'human lie detector' could jeopardize the whole mission. However, he can't help being attracted to Clare and the attraction is mutual... After a series of incidents and another dead body, Jake decides to keep an eye on Clare for both professional and personal reasons and realizes that perhaps, he's been on the wrong track for his investigation.
My Opinion: So I've been going through Ms Krentz's backlist, basically focusing on her 90's books... but I decided to give her newer books a try. The reason I've been staying away from them is because of the paranormal touch... However, I admit being curious about how she would incorporate psychic abilities into her stories.
As a whole, I think the story was okay. I liked Clare and Jake and enjoyed their interactions and relationship. I think they match well together, both strong personalities and understand each other because of their very strong psychic abilities. I admire Clare's tenacity - how she wouldn't give up on finding a job and her applications at J&J.
Clare and Jake's personalities are very similar to Ms Krentz's previous H/H. Although I have to say, Jake is more mercenary than others :) If you enjoyed Ms Krentz's H/H in the past, I don't see why you would have a problem with Clare and Jake. As for the overall plot, it was interesting
and kept me turning the pages. The only thing I thought that was unclear was Myra (Clare's father's wife)'s feelings toward Clare.
What did I think about Ms Krentz' s incorportation of psychic abilities? I'm not too sure. While reading White Lies, I kept thinking of Ms Hooper's FBI SCU series. I have to admit, I like Ms Hooper's take better. In White Lies, the characters take psychic abilities for granted in my opinion. They don't really try to look into their abilities... Sure, they work to get control over it, but that's about it. The fact that everyone had psychic abilities to a certain degrees and that they were all registered with the Arcane Society... it was just weird. I mean, they all just went on the Arcane website and look up each other to find their abilities and levels. Also, the psychic abilities are not the usual ones we encounter... I mean, nothing wrong with that... but it was a bit unusual. Everyone seems so well adjusted with their abilities and so on, I guess they were secondary to the storylines.
Overall, a good book and different than most books with psychic main characters... however, I do prefer her straight contemporary romances though :)
My Grade: B
