Book and Audio Review: Trust Me by Jayne Ann Krentz

Trust Me
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz
Narrator: Richard Ferrone
Publication: Simon & Schuster Audio (July 17, 2012)
Length: 11 hours and 33 minutes

Description: When Desdemona Wainwright tries to collect a much-needed payment for catering Sam Stark's canceled wedding reception, she encounters, not a heartbroken suitor, but the steel-willed head of a multimillion-dollar consulting firm with the cold brain of a computer - and the finely hewn body of a medieval knight. Sam sees a beautiful, theatrical hoyden with huge turquoise eyes who has the right professional catering skills he needs for his business. Opposites attract, and before long, he's sure he's found the perfect business wife. But Desdemona intends to break down the walls around his heart.

When someone tries to steal his top-secret computer program, suspicions center on the people Desdemona holds most dear. As sinister intrigues swirl around them all, this unlikely pair discover that their love and even their lives may depend on emotions and bonds that can't be measured - like unstoppable passion and unbreakable trust.

Filled with fabulous fun, tingling suspense, and a wonderful new love story, Trust Me is great entertainment.

My Thoughts: Desdemona Wainwright is a caterer who is on the hook for the bills when the bride doesn't show up for the wedding. So she goes to the groom to have him cut her a check for the catering bill. Sam Stark is the groom who has been left at the altar. Sam is into computers in the 1995 release and he has his own computer security business. Since he was more or less abandoned by his parents when they divorced when he was ten, Sam doesn't know much about families or trust. Desdemona was adopted into the Wainwrights when her mother remarried after getting away from a husband who was really dangerous. Family, and especially her beloved Wainwrights, are the center of Desdemona's life.

It doesn't look like the two of them would have very much in common. The Wainwrights are theater people who live on their emotions; Stark is the very definition of someone who avoids emotion and greatly prefers logic. But Desdemona falls in love with him because she can see how much he needs her and family ties.

Someone, however, is trying to steal a new computer program Stark is working on and the first and most obvious suspect is Desdemona's stepbrother Tony. Tony and Stark don't hit it off! Tony is very protective of Desdemona and doesn't think unemotional Stark is right for her. Stark is jealous and fears that Tony has romantic designs on Desdemona.

When claustrophobic Desdemona finds herself locked in the freezer of her catering company with the body of her ice carver by a masked villain who takes a couple of shots at her, she manages to send Stark an email using the PDA X-1000 he gave her for her birthday. Both become even more invested in discovering who is trying to steal Stark's program and blame Tony though it takes quite a while for Stark to become convinced Tony isn't the mastermind.

This was action-packed and filled with the growing love between Stark and Desdemona. It was also filled with a number of quirky characters from Desdemona's extended Wainwright family. I enjoyed Stark's younger half-brothers who come to stay with him when their father abandons them like he abandoned Stark years earlier. I like the way family sort of crept up on Stark who managed to prove that he wasn't at all like his feckless father. 

The technology was dated but the romance was timeless. It was also filled with the charming banter that is a hallmark of Krentz's writing. Richard Ferrone did a fine job narrating this one and did a good job with the female voices and children's voices. 

Favorite Quote:

Surrounded by her more dramatic relatives, she stood out like a marmalade-colored tabby cat that had mistakenly been reared in a family of leopards.

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.