Silver Master

by Jayne Castle
Book 4 of Harmony

The summary blurb is a little bit misleading, but then again, not really.  So this first sentence was moot.

Much like the previous book in Jayne Castle's Harmony series, Silver Master is a lot of fun to read--entertaining, with great characters, and a hooking story line despite the predictability of it all.  The pacing is fast and smooth, so we get into the action right away, just as it seems we do for all other JAK books.

Unfortunately, much like the previous book in this series, Silver Master isn't really all that memorable, I guess, aside from the dust bunnies and the "Great Pink Wedding."

What I DO like about these books--aside from their absurd addictive quality and how well they keep me entertained--is that there are new developments in the Harmony world as each book progresses.  Besides a new set of characters and a new crime thriller and a new suspense, we also get new psychic abilities, new discoveries... it beats reading several installments of the same stories about ghost hunters and tanglers exploring the alien catacombs, that's for sure.

So I love that, while the stories are somewhat predictable, the story lines and plot progressions are all unique in their own way, with introductions of new stuff.

Also, I find it hard to dislike books that have adorable critters and those dust bunnies are certainly doing it for me.

The romance was another standard type:  Woman with eccentric qualities meets man with similar eccentric qualities, therein changing each other's outlook on their own love lives.  Sparks fly, steamy sex happens, Happily Ever After™.

Don't get me wrong, Davis and Celinda are both great individuals, and as per JAK standards, they both also make a great investigating team as well as romantic coupling.  There is nothing I can think of that I disliked about the romance.  It was just so standard that it doesn't really stand out.

Side characters are always nice, and I'm always intrigued by them and wonder if they will get their own stories.  I'm specifically also curious about Detective Alice Martinez, who has thus far graced the pages of every Harmony book so far since After Dark--she gets little scene time in the books as a side character, but her presence is quite strong nonetheless.

The suspense part was predictable, although we don't really have much of a mystery, per se.  So most of the suspense parts were really just that, some suspense, some action, some thrill, and some investigation, of sorts.


Overall, Silver Master is another entertaining and enjoyable Jayne Castle (Jayne Ann Krentz) read and I'm looking forward to continuing this series.


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2016 Reading Challenges:
• Goodreads Reading Challenge
• BookLikes Reading Challenge

Harmony series
by Jayne Castle
Book #1: After Dark | Goodreads | Rating:  3.5 Stars
Book #2: After Glow | Goodreads | Rating:  3.5 Stars

Overall Average Rating:  3.5 Stars


First of all, while these two books are part of a larger series, both After Dark and After Glow would be best red together as a set.  According to other reviews, the two books detail a complete story arc concerning the same characters and one particular main conflict that spans both books.

Secondly, even though I didn't give very high ratings for these two books, I really DID find myself enjoying them.  The inclusion of a pet dust bunny as a live animal might have helped out, because despite being described as a predator in his own right ("by the time you see the teeth, it's too late"), I found Fuzz to be immensely adorable and didn't have a hard time picturing a piece of gray fluff with wide, innocent looking blue eyes and six tiny feet.

In fact, I have half the mind to go Googling for pictures of possible dust bunny images and making them my mascot.

Oh yeah.  The rest of the characters and the story were cool, too.

The Books:

My Thoughts:
While I'm always hesitant to dive into extremely long-running series, the Harmony (a.k.a. Ghost Hunter) series seemed interesting enough.  For some reason (especially since I have Second Sight on my reading list for this year) I felt some sort of strange motivation to start reading the Harmony series from the beginning while reading the Arcane Society as well.  After all, both series intersect at some point and my curiosity as to how this is handled got the better of me.

I can't say that I'm entirely in awe of the entire ordeal, but what I've read so far--After Dark, After Glow, as well as the prequel novella Bridal Jitters--were actually quite enjoyable and entertaining.  It took a while to understand the workings of the Harmony world, and even then some of the terminology, colloquial dialogue, and references were still a bit confusing.  But setting aside the fact that suspension of disbelief must be exercised in force, the world that Jayne Castle creates in Harmony is actually kind of intriguing and quite creative.

I think I rather like this series and the world it takes place in.  For one thing, I AM kind of happy that there weren't any awkward info dumps, though I DO appreciate seeing some random back history tangents, even if, maybe, they were a bit forced.

Nonetheless, I found the prequel novella (see short review here) and the first two books of the Harmony series quite fun to read.

Lydia was a delight as the main heroine in a romance: straight-forward, gutsy, sarcastic, and resourceful.  There were moments that she became slightly irritating, but those passed by quite quickly and I barely even noticed them.  But I truly DID love that she wasn't afraid to be blunt and say whatever was on her mind.

Emmett was a typical romance hero, but at the same time I'm happy to say that he was enjoyable as well.  He had his moments of broody, alpha, caveman.  But he also had enough sense and respect for Lydia to acknowledge when she was the expert and telling her to stay out of situations was pointless or even inadvisable.

Together, the two DID make a great team as a tangler-hunter pair.  It makes the romance a lot more interesting and likable when the couple can work together and have a nice steamy-hot relationship on the side.  The romance itself wasn't the most interesting love story nor was the best I've read, but after two books of the same couple, you grow to love them together a lot.  And as a matter of fact, they felt so comfortable and natural together, that I couldn't see the couple in any other way aside from being a pair who've been together forever instead of the short month or so that they'd actually known each other for.

While the first book was slightly bland, I think having that second book kind of makes up for it.  As an introduction to a futuristic, paranormal romantic suspense, I think this short story arc does it's job nicely.  Even if the suspense parts were kind of predictable.


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2016 Reading Challenges:
• Goodreads Reading Challenge
• BookLikes Reading Challenge
• Bookish Resolutions Challenge -- Bout of Books 16