Jack Winters has been experiencing nightmares and blackouts - manifestations of the Winters Family curse. The legend says that he must find the Burning Lamp or risk turning into a monster. He needs the help of a woman who can read the lamp's dreamlight. Jack is convinced that private investigator Chloe Harper and her talents for finding objects and accessing dream energy will save him, but their powerful sexual pull threatens to overwhelm them. Chloe picks up the trail of the missing lamp but as they draw closer, will they be able to withstand the power that dwells within it?
Book 1 of the Dreamlight Trilogy
Book 7 in the Arcane Society series
Sparrowgal's score - 8/10
Sparrowgal's thoughts - spoiler alert!
Jayne Ann Krentz writes under a lot of pen names! In reference to the Arcane society, however, she writes as Amanda Quick when writing historical romance, as Jayne Ann Krentz for Contemporary romance, and as Jayne Castle for futuristic romance.
I really enjoyed this book. Chloe, is a convincing and powerful Dreamlight talent. Her talent works thus: Every living thing emits psi, and even those with no talent give off considerable amounts of energy even in a calm state of mind, also known as auras. Humans give off a lot of energy in the dreamstate, more so than the waking state. Even if they are not dreaming adn even if they forget their dreams, the energy is nevertheless produced, and people leave races of it wherever they go and on whatever they touch. Chloe can see it in the form of psi prints, which are like fingerprints, giving off various hues of ultralight. Chloe works as a Private investigator and also gives accurate dating of historical artifacts as she can date and read the prints left on the artifacts by people who have created and handled the item.
Jack's talent is a strat-talent, meaning he can predict people's behaviour and hone in on their weaknesses for his benefit. He has recently begun to experience the next stage of the Winter's curse - which states there are three talents locked in the Winter's bloodline. The first talent fills the mind with a rising tide of restlessness that cannot be eased by research or alcohol or drugs. The second talent is accompanied by dark dreams and terrible visions. The third talent is the most powerful and most dangerous. If the key is not turned properly in the lock, his last psychical ability will prove lethal, bringing on insanity and then death. Jack has started exhibiting the second talent symptoms.
They meet, and there is an instant attraction, and Chloe agrees to hunt for the lamp for him. She doesn't let him know at this stage that she can't sleep with any man because of her talent. This is because sleeping in the same room is extremely disturbing for her as the dream energy they produce is so chaotic it can be painful. Even people napping in a chair is distressing to her.
Searching for the lamp as well are Nightshade operatives, who want to use the lamp to help those under the influence of the drug, stabilising them, or even to make them more powerful. Humphrey Hulsey (a descendent of Basil Hulsey - who worked on the original formula), a scientist who believes that dream psi is the key to opening unlimited power, is working for Nightshade, and Victoria Knight (who featured in Sizzle and Burn as Niki Plumer) who has a poweful hypnotic talent, who was working for Cascadia Dawn, work together to see if the rumours about the lamp are true, with Victoria trying to see if her Grandfather's theories are true.
The romance between the two characters is very believable and palpable and enjoyable to watch unfold. They engage each other in the stages of post psi-burn, which is similar to a post adrenaline rush experienced after a fight, or even a football match. Being both powerful talents, the sex is amazing, with the right person.
Jack sought Chloe because like him, they both are not connected to the Arcane Society, and even less connected to the Jones family - the founders and one of the most powerful families within the society. Chloe's family, the Harpers, are a long line of con artists and counterfeiters, and Chloe is one of the few who engage in legal activity.
Chloe and Jack obtain the lamp, and use it together. It can only be used together, and she realigns his spectrum a little, stabilising it, removing the hallucinations and blackouts, but also enhancing his power to be able to access his powers a little better, to use the lamp in a specific way. Together, they are able to wield the lamp as a psi weapon - but only a Winters and a dreamlight talent are able to use the lamp as such a weapon.
By the end of the book, it is discovered that Jack is immune to the Nightshade formula, due to his genetic makeup. Chloe describes his genetic anomaly as the ability to tolerate open channels between the dreamstate and the waking state, allowing him access to the power from the dreamstate. In normal individuals this can drive you insane. In the Nightshade formula, it artificially opens these channels, but it creates a dependence on these open channels that you have to continue to take the formula to keep access to the power or they shut down and you almost all of your power and go insane.
So happily ever after, and the book ends with Fallon Jones meeting Isabella Valdez in his office - the beginning of In Too Deep.
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