Review: Midnight Crystal by Jayne Castle

It began with Krentz...continued with Quick...and now it will end with Castle.

For many earthly centuries, a legendary curse has plagued the Winters family, stemming from the tumultuous founding of the Arcane Society. But now, on the futuristic world of Harmony, the curse's final mystery will be unraveled...Head of the ghost hunters guilt Adam Winters and dreamlight reader extraordinaire Marlowe Jones must break the curse, save Harmony's entire underworld - and fight a passion that could destroy them both.

I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned before that out of the three Jayne Ann Krentz incarnations Quick is my favorite. I've only read one other Jayne Castle book, the first one in her Ghost Hunters series, After Dark. I wasn't all that impressed, more disappointed with it and haven't made any other efforts with her Castle books. I wasn't planning on reading Midnight Crystal either; the first two parts of the Dreamlight Trilogy left a lot to be desired for me but I saw this in the library and thought what the hell.

Midnight Crystal felt lackluster to me. I liked Adam and Marlowe but was bored throughout most of the book. The revealed secret of the midnight crystal was a let down and this being the third and final installment in this trilogy, I hoped for some kind of a resolution here. The mystery of the crystal had lasted for centuries and it was all for a simple message? Is that really supposed to be the payoff for sticking with a trilogy of dissatisfying books?

Midnight Crystal meanders its way through a familiar plot that is quite a bit like After Dark and many other of her Arcane novels: two fairly powerful people on different sides of the fight get wrapped up in a mystery that involves psychic powers on either Earth or a futuristic-ish world inhabited by Earth's descendants called Harmony. You know what it really reminded me of? The Tommyknockers by Stephen King. All that quartz glowing that eerie acid green that is found hidden in the woods (or jungle in this case) and messes with your head with evidence of highly intelligent aliens who lived in freaky mazes made of the stuff. I didn't finish reading The Tommyknockers and it's one of the few King novels that I didn't really like. I'm surprised I made it through to the end.

Jayne Ann Krentz's next book, In Too Deep: Book One of the Looking Glass Trilogy, is the book I've been waiting for in her Arcane series for a long time now - Fallon Jones's book. Fallon pops up in every Krentz (not Quick or Castle) Arcane book and he's been desperately needing a woman. I like Krentz too much as a writer to be turned off by a less-than-captivating trilogy. Please let it be a good one!