Orchid (St. Helens Book 3)

It may be that this book is a product of it’s time, but the para-language that Ms. Castle/Krentz used was unintentionally hilarious. Language changes. It evolves over time. New words are “invented” and old jargon falls by the wayside. Consequently, the AU language that Ms. Castle/Krentz invented for this series is far less detailed than her ideas about a paranormal society.It’s been hundreds of years since the new planet was colonized and lost contact with the old planet. Why would people who have no personal knowledge of Earth use old-timey compound words related to animals they’ve never seen? Surely the language would have naturally evolved. From 1980 to 2020, English has already evolved around tech and the English language from 1520 to 2020 has significantly changed, so it doesn’t make linguistic sense for people to say “pear-berry” when “pearry” is right there or “gel-ice” instead of the more cumbersome “jelly-ice”. Furthermore, the author is repetitive in the made-up terms. “Jelly” and “Ice” seem to describe a multitude of unrelated things. Jelly-ice candles. Icers are cars. Jelly-coke is a drink.Here is a brief sample, taken from the book:Cat-dogWolf-hound (which actually exists and is spelled without a hyphen)Jelly-iceJelly-cokeBat-snakeWorm-snakeRat-snakeMoose-deerPear-berryMeta-zen-synThe characters and mystery were nicely drawn, which is why the atrocious half-@ss3d language was distracting.

I am a fan of Jayne Ann Krentz in all of her identities. This one is under Jayne Castle which told me it would be set in the future. I really enjoy all of the books set on the world of Harmony, but this is part of a trilogy set on a world called St Helen's (yes, like the volcano). Still well written as all of her books are, but I kept getting the feeling it was the predecessor of the Harmony books, and those are the ones that are fine tuned. So although I enjoyed it, this trilogy is not as good as the series set on Harmony.

I've read the other two books in this trilogy, "Amaryllis" and "Zinnia". My favorite was "Zinnia" and "Orchid" was quite a bit behind that book when it came to my enjoyment. Having said that, I will say that I am a huge fan of the fantasy/sci-fi/romance novels of Jayne Castle and fully intend to read each and every one she publishes.Now on to "Orchid". Orchid Adams is a writer of psychic vampire romance fiction. (A psychic vampire novel involves a very strong talent mentally kidnapping a - usually virginal - prism and forcing her to do his bidding. This, or course, turns into true love because the vampire is just misunderstood.) So far she has written three novels. I had hoped that Jayne Castle would give us some idea of what it might be like for an author to be involved in crafting a book. No. This book is all about Orchid's other job. She works part-time as a prism for Psynergy, Inc. Orchid, however, is not just a prism, she is an ice-prism. She has a talent which is truly remarkable and unusual among the general population.Rafe Stonebreaker (where do authors come up with these names?) is a psychic strat-talent which means that he is skilled in finding, locating, hunting, tracking, tracing. Those types of skills. They help him earn a living as a financial advisor by using his analytical skills on the stock market. As a hobby he likes to investigate problems such as finding stolen books or alien artifacts posed by friends and aquaintances. Rafe's talent is looked down upon by most of the inhabitants of the space colony St. Helens because his skills are considered primitive, a throwback to earlier times when hunting, force and violence were required to survive. Strat-talents are often criminals. But of course, not our Rafe. I liked him. I REALLY liked him in the other two books when there was a total air of mystery about him but even after meeting him in this story, I still liked him. He is in need of a wife and has registered with an official marriage brokerage firm. Orchid is working with him to provide him with a prism so that he can concentrate his strat-talent, but his ulterior motive is to use as many prisms as possible to help find a wife for himself. Orchid does not meet any of his requirements for a wife but he can't seem to stay away from her.A good book. I was somewhat disappointed because I read this one just days after finishing "Zinnia" and there are many instances of dialogue and situations which are word for word the same in these two books. As a mystery it seemed forced. The two culprits (yes, Orchid is caught two times by two different bad guys) were not fleshed out at all. Not very well done, in my opinion. The family conflict is settled much, much too easily. If it was that easy to solve, why had it gone on so long in the first place? This one is not my favorite but I do like Jayne Castle's writing and, as I've said before, will buy any other books in this genre which she writes.

The title pretty much says it all. I love Jayne in the past, present and future. This is one of her earlier future stories. She mixes SciFi, fantasy and romance in interesting and absorbing ways. The plots are tight. Her heroes and heroines are capable, likeable and interesting. Her villians suitably evil. I have never read any of her novels that I didn't enjoy (and I think I have read just about all of her books including those by Stephanie St. James!). Orchid is one of three books books located on the planet of St. Helens where the heroes and heroines have to work together to control their psychic abilities. Together they are an unbeatable combination. Jayne then moved her 'future' books to the planet of Harmony where she came up with the interesting idea of writing books in a series of threes where one novel of each series in written in the past of Victorian England, the second is contemporary in present day America and the third is located on the planet of Harmony in the future. Each story has a central theme that ties the three stories together. But wherever they are located in space or time, they are great reads!The only criticism I have is that I wish she would write faster as I am impatient to read her next book! Hey Jayne, do you really need eight hours of sleep a night?

If you read book 1 and or book 2 you pretty much read this book as well. It'll be a very similar male/female character development. I enjoyed the world building and how the "powers" balanced each other out. I thought the desire for the female to keep "investigating" was pretty weak, but it did keep the story going. I did find the male's "powers" to be.....well kind of wack and pointless to be honest. Of the two other books in this series none of the other male leads had to have this "hunter" power to be alpha males...so it made me wonder a little too much about his character.

Loved it

ok but latyer books better

Loved it

loved it

What a great read!