Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44125 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 352 pages

Synopsis
Para-archaeologist Lydia Smith has her hands full when she takes a part-time job in the low-rent Shrimpton's House of Ancient Horrors hoping to get her career back on track after an unfortunate incident in an alien tomb.

Customer Reviews

wonderful, delightful! paranormal
After Dark is the prequel to After Glow - just out recently under the Castle name. It was a super paranormal/off-world tale that I really adored and thought it a great, vibrant tale, much in the old Krentz mold. Strangely, it was not received well by her fans at the time - before the big Paranormal Romance boom. Its reception was so cold that her publisher put off putting out anymore in this series for nearly four years. I guess the Paranormals burning up the charts caused them to rethink that line, and they brought out the sequel to After Dark - After Glow - which received great reviews. My, my what a time frame can mean to the readers mind?

After Dark was a great Off-World tale of Harmony, where earth travelers colonized and then were cut off from Earth connections when the "curtain" closed. (See Amaryllis, Zinnia and Orchard, books set on the same planet). A race of aliens once lived on the planet, leaving behind vast underground ruins, all protected by "trap" illusions. It takes a special sort of "detangler" to derazzle the traps that were known to fry people's minds. Lydia Smith is a detangler for an archaeologist team working in the eerie green glowing underground. When something goes wrong, Lydia finds herself without a job or a professional reputation. In comes Emmett London, who is tracking down lost antiques. He hires Lydia as a consultant. Alien ghosts and "traps" start haunting the couple left and right as it's obvious someone doesn't want the team to solve the riddle of the missing alien artifacts. Lydia and Emmett sizzle. This was one paranormal that was ahead of the pack.

Super use of Multi-POV (Point of View), the way all romances should be written!

a paranormal tale way ahead of the pack
After Dark is the prequel to After Glow - just out recently under the Castle name. It was a super paranormal/off-world tale that I really adored and thought it a great, vibrant tale, much in the old Krentz mold. Strangely, it was not received well by her fans at the time - before the big Paranormal Romance boom. Its reception was so cold that her publisher put off putting out anymore in this series for nearly four years. I guess the Paranormals burning up the charts caused them to rethink that line, and they brought out the sequel to After Dark - After Glow - which received great reviews. My, my what a time frame can mean to the readers mind?

After Dark was a great Off-World tale of Harmony, where earth travelers colonized and then were cut off from Earth connections when the "curtain" closed. (See Amaryllis, Zinnia and Orchard, books set on the same planet). A race of aliens once lived on the planet, leaving behind vast underground ruins, all protected by "trap" illusions. It takes a special sort of "detangler" to derazzle the traps that were known to fry people's minds. Lydia Smith is a detangler for an archaeologist team working in the eerie green glowing underground. When something goes wrong, Lydia finds herself without a job or a professional reputation. In comes Emmett London, who is tracking down lost antiques. He hires Lydia as a consultant. Alien ghosts and "traps" start haunting the couple left and right as it's obvious someone doesn't want the team to solve the riddle of the missing alien artifacts. Lydia and Emmett sizzle. This was one paranormal that was ahead of the pack.

Super use of Multi-POV (Point of View), the way all romances should be written!

classic jc mystery/romance on a future world....
"Why did'nt you tell me that you're a dissonance -energy para-rez?"...is the heroine's complaint to the hero in this classic reprise of jc's usual concoction of mystery, romance, suspense, paranormal abilities, futuristic stuff...and of course snappy one-liners. The story is that Lydia, suffering from post traumatic para stress hooks up with Emmett to solve a murder, find a missing teenager and discover some treasure. If the main para abilities here are a bit clunky-sounding, that's only a minor moan. The dialogue and descriptions are great and I loved Lydia's pet dust-bunny. Even poor Chester, introduced as a corpse in the very first line, was a fully fleshed out character and I thoroughly enjoyed this 'read in one go' keeper. It did drop a star (in comparison with the Zinnia, Orchid & Amaryllis trio, which all rated 5++++ for me!) because I could'nt warm up to the para abilities here, quite apart from the long names! Also Emmett seemed just a bit more detached then say Nick Chastain or Lucas Trent who lost it big-time (with a sizzle!) for their respective ladies. But hey, the heroine was great, the hero was a babe, the imagination & humour were fab so go for it - its a good'un!