Since this is the newest of my recently acquired Krentz stash, I saved it for last. Unfortunately, as it turns out to be my least favorite of the group. While good enough as a romance, the story had some real weaknesses that interfered with my ability to simply enjoy.First, and most significant (to me), it jumped perspective all over the place. With romance, as a genre, you expect to jump pretty freely between the two main protagonists. But this novel jumped into random people (mostly bad guys) at the start of some chapters and I found that off-putting. Worse, it always delayed identifying whose head you were in for as long as possible--sometimes all the way to the end of that section. This was not so much manipulative as it was gamey and pushed me out of the narrative almost immediately.Second, the relationship starts in the hole with Elizabeth and Jack having already had an unsatisfactory... uh... liaison. And then fighting about it. In public. This reflects poorly on both and lost a lot of my sympathy right up front.Finally, neither lead really appealed to me at all. Jack was wishy-washy, at turns needy and cocky without any clear reason for shifting. Further, he sure flails around a lot for somebody who supposedly trained in martial arts since he was 8. Of the handful of physical confrontations present, he didn't come out on top in a single one. Embarrassing. And Elizabeth was awful easy for someone supposedly in charge of approving angel funding for small businesses--including being consistently conciliatory towards Jack.An engaging story might have made up for these weaknesses, and this story was serviceable. But only just.In all, I was never tempted to put the book down and it's on the low side for three stars, but it wasn't so bad that I want to drop it down to two. Call it a 2.5 with favorable rounding.A note about Steamy: Possibly the only aspect of the novel that worked, and about the only thing the leads managed to get more or less right. On the average side (a couple explicit scenes of moderate to short length). Though it never was satisfactorily explained what went wrong their first time, I find I didn't really care...
i always look forward in reading jayne ann krentz books. I like the idea of the lead characters being into each other no matter how they deny and contradict each other. I always like the mystery suspense and I always want to find out who is the culprit. It is always explained how this is so... but in this story i feel it didnt elaborate much on the reason , the rationale behind why the theft at Escalibur, the reason why such theft is done, how tyler Page got to know Gillian and she being the femme fatale and all when she is interested in is revenge to whom hayden? for what? and they take in tyler page as if he did nothing wrong...i feel the escapade in mirror springs is wasted, just a venue for jack and elizabeth to have an affair..it didnt talk much of what happened to vicky ballamy whom i presumed to have staged a disappearance... at the end of the story i feel so tired trying to catch with what happened..such a wasted effort to look for tyler and nothing...wasted 3 days of finishing the book..
Do You like book Soft Focus (1999)?
Not my favorite JAK. The banter between Jack and Elizabeth was often more caustic than friendly, and their characters weren't developed well enough for me to really care about them. Part of that might have been the focus on the noir elements, which was an interesting stylistic choice but, well ... noir is stylized bleakness, and JAK tends more towards fizzy. The tones didn't really mesh. It did make me start looking for some Bogart/Bacall titles to borrow from the library though, so that's something!Warning: references to incest/child sexual abuse
—Jessica
REVIEW OF AUDIOBOOK & REREAD JULY 15, 2013: 3 STARSThe film noir feel in the Prologue nearly had me abandoning it before I got to chapter 1 then I thought maybe it was deliberate. I'm not a fan of these old B & W movies, whether mysteries or love stories even though it's very unfashionable of me to admit that.The rest of the book was average and while I liked Jack Fairfax, and to a lesser extent, Elizabeth, they aren't anywhere near my fav pairings. I found it slow-going once they arrived at the Colorado town looking for the man who stole Soft Focus and by the second last chapter, I couldn't wait to finish it.It isn't the worst JAK reread I've had since I started this year but pretty close. I'll be buying Grand Passion with my Audible credit tomorrow and I hope that's better.Meantime, believe it or not, I'm loving Cut & Run Book 5, Armed & Dangerous.
—ElaineY
Jack Fairfax is not having a good year. First, he finds out that the woman that he's seeing (Elizabeth Cabot), not only didn't have a good time with him, she was affected by a vicious takeover that he set up. It ended up with a yelling match in a rather well-known restaurant which end with a pitcher of water over his head. He's still linked to her because her foundation is supporting a business that he's consulting and that business has just had their top-secret, going-to-save-the-company product stolen from the safe. It seems that one of their top scientists has absconded with the product to a small town film-noir festival. Jack and Elizabeth are on the case. Lots of great film references.
—Jessi
