Audiobook Review: Light in Shadow by Jayne Ann Krentz

Light in Shadow
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz
Narrator: Chloe Cannon
Series: Whispering Springs (Book 1)
Publication: Tantor Audio (May 2, 2023)
Length: 11 hours and 42 minutes

Description: Zoe Luce is a successful interior designer in the Arizona town of Whispering Springs who's developed an unusual career specialty—helping recently divorced clients redesign their homes, to help them forget the past and start anew. But Zoe knows that some things can't be covered up with a coat of paint. And when she senses that one of her clients may be hiding a dark secret, she enlists PI Ethan Truax to find the truth.

Working together, they solve the mystery . . . and barely escape with their lives. But Ethan's exquisite detection skills are starting to backfire on Zoe: she never wanted to let him find out about her former life; she never wanted to reveal her powerful, inexplicable gift for sensing the history hidden within a house's walls; she never wanted him to know that "Zoe Luce" doesn't really exist. She never wanted to fall in love with him.

Now, no matter how much she resists, Ethan may be her only hope—because the people she's been running from have found her. And just when Zoe dares to dream of a normal life and a future with the man she loves, her own past starts to shadow her every step—and threatens to take her back into a nightmare.

My Thoughts: Zoe Luce is a woman with secrets. She has set herself up as an interior designer in Whispering Springs with a specialty in working with newly divorced people who want to remake their homes. However, Zoe runs into a problem with her latest client. Her talent for feeling a room leads her to believe that her client has killed the wife he claimed ran off and left him. 

Zoe hires PI Ethan Truax because he is the cheaper of two PI firms in town. Ethan is rebuilding his life after a bankruptcy in Los Angeles and the costs of this third divorce. He takes the job of checking out Zoe's client believing that she wants a background check on him as a potential dating partner. He doesn't expect to find out that the client murdered his wife. Nor does he expect the client to attempt to murder Zoe when she sets Ethan on him. 

Besides being psychic and able to enter a room to know that violence occurred there, Zoe is on the run from a family that committed her to a mental institution when she made scenes after her husband was murdered accusing another family member of the crime. She's escaped the mental institution but needs to stay hidden for another couple of months before she can confront her suspected killer at the annual board meeting. But someone has sent her a blackmail note indicating that they know where she is. 

Now, Ethan and Zoe are on the track of a blackmailer who might also be a killer.

This is classic Jayne Ann Krentz with engaging characters, a fast-paced plot, snappy dialog, and a realistic romance. This one was first published in 2002.

I bought this one at Chirp August 18, 2024. You can buy your copy here.