Illusion Town (Ghost Hunters, #13) by Jayne Castle
Series: Harmony #13
Published by Jove on July 26th 2016
Genres: Futuristic
Pages: 340
Goodreads

FINAL DECISION: Enjoyable read, but not the best of this series.  The characters were more engaged in the storyline than any personal relationship and I prefer my books the other way around.

THE STORY: Hannah West wakes up lllusion Town married to her client Elias Coppersmith but neither of them can remember what prompted them to marry.  But they do remember that someone was after them.  The two end up retracing their steps to discover who was trying to capture them and what is threatening them.  On the planet Harmony, these two high talents need to solve the mystery and also manage to discover whether their marriage of convenience might be something more.

OPINION:  I have been a Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle/Amanda Quick/etc, etc. fan for many years and have read everything she has published.  For me, while this book was a good read, there was nothing about the book that would compel me to read it again.

I’ve loved these paranormal stories since she was writing the Arcane series that crossed her various pen names.  The Harmony series has been fun and sexy and have some of my favorite books.  While this book has many of the elements that I have enjoyed in this series, I didn’t think this book is one of the better ones in the series.

I prefer my books to be about the characters rather than the mystery or the story. While I want a good story to propel the characters arc, I prefer to know about the characters emotions, feelings and thoughts.  When the story is the focus, the characters often feel interchangeable, unimportant and I can’t get engaged in their romance because the characters remain cyphers.  Unfortunately that is the case here.  While I enjoyed the book as a whole, I never felt any connection with the characters and thus their story just didn’t matter as much to me as I want.

There wasn’t any serious conflict between the characters or even within the characters.  All the conflict was external with the situation and thus the characters remained generic and their romance was rather banal.  The biggest plot twist — waking up married was quickly defused as a plot point as the two almost immediately determined what had happened and moved on.  I was disappointed that there was not more to that part of the story.

That being said, the book was well written and I enjoyed the overall story.  I just want more romance in my romance books.

WORTH MENTIONING:  There is a nice reunion of dust bunnies and humans towards the end of the book.

CONNECTED BOOKS:  ILLUSION TOWN is the thirteenth book in the Harmony series.  It can be read as a standalone with the caveat that the book does assume some knowledge of the Harmony world.

STAR RATING:  I give this book 3 stars.