Promise Not to Tell by Jayne Ann Krentz

This story follows "When All the Girls Have Gone," when the story of a cult leader who locked eight children in a barn and then set it on fire, leaving them to die. Virginia Troy and Cabot Sutter were both in that barn and neither believes that Quinton Zane is dead. The last painting of one of Virginia's clients certainly seems to point that way. When she receives a picture of that painting, Virginia goes to the only man who might believe her, Anson Salinas, the man who rescued her that night. He refers her to his adoptive son, Cabot Sutter. They recognize each other almost immediately.
But someone wants the illusion that Zane is dead to stay intact. They don't want Cabot looking into it. Virginia seems to be immune, maybe because someone believes she has the key to the fortune Zane lost right before he disappeared.
There was a lot going at the end of this book. There was just one twist too many. Honestly, the story could have ended about two twists sooner and earned another rating star. Also, there is a very nice part where Virginia panics and Cabot treats her very kindly. Very forward thinking in terms of sex interactions. So why no condoms? A guy who's that sensitive to his partner would be sensitive in other ways.  I was also disappointed that we didn't get to see more of the story of the two falling in love.

Cutler, Sutter, & Salinas #2
Three stars

Follows When All the Girls Have Gone

Followed by Untouchable
This book comes out January 2, 2017

Reread as ebook from Libby February 2024

When All The Girls Have Gone by Jayne Ann Krentz

The book opens, not unlike many of Krentz's contemporaries, with a murder. We see it through the eyes of the killer. And it seems rather obvious who the killer is as the book goes on, but this is a Krentz novel.
To that end, we do get a hero and heroine. Max Cutler is a former profiler. A case went horribly wrong, stirring up ghosts from his past, and he decided (or the decision was made) for him to leave D.C. He ended up in Seattle, working as a private investigator. His current case involves a dead woman who the police believe to have died from an overdose. Her cousin isn't so sure. He things it's murder.
Normally Charlotte Sawyer considers herself fairly boring. She works in a nursing home as an the activities coordinator. It's true that her former fiance left her at the altar, but she's working to get over that.  Charlotte step-sister, Jocelyn, says that she is too trusting, and Charlotte agrees. But it doesn't follow that she is also stupid.
Max and Charlotte's paths cross when Charlotte, watching Jocelyn's house while she's on a tech-free month-long retreat, is the one who picks up the package sent to Jocelyn from the dead woman.  A packages that sends her on an adventure.
Regular Krentz readers will definitely enjoy the book. It's very much in the rhythm of her recent contemporaries. The love story was a bit fast and furious and the multiple "epilogues" were a bit tedious but overall a fast and fun read. I do hope we get to hear about Max's brothers, Cabot and Jack and find out whether the guru Zane really did die.
Three and a half stars
This book comes out November 29

Secret Sisters by Jayne Ann Krentz

The publisher provided me with a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Madeline "Maddie" Chase has inherited a B&B empire upon her grandmother's recent death. As the contemporary portion of the book opens, she's breaking up with her current boyfriend with backup provided by her security consultant, Jack Rayner. If you've read JAK before, you can probably figure out who the boyfriend at the end is going to be as well as how the roles for the rest of the main players will fall out. The first chapter shows an incident in her past that ended in death so she has reasons for trust issues in the present. And then the caretaker at the site of that incident calls and says he needs to talk to her. When she gets to Cooper Island, the caretaker has time to gasp out his dying words before he expires. And then it all goes down hill from there.

Okay. So-- the title. The phrase seems to imply girls that would have a) at least stayed in touch with each other over the years and been very close or b) had more interaction in this book, or maybe even c) been newly discovered siblings after a parent died, but no. Or we could have had some more explanation of how that came to be-- was it actually tied to the opening chapter? But, no, none one of these occurs. It was annoying because throughout the whole book, I just kept trying to figure out why this book was given this title since that part of the story is such a small aspect (though it is occasionally shoe-horned in). Even Maddie's suggestion of "Nightmare at Aurora Point" would have been better-fitting.
I have and always will auto-add any of JAK's books (under any of her pen names) to my TBR books because they're usually so enjoyable. This one... just didn't work as well. I liked both Trust No One and River Road (the latest two new (i.e. not re-released) contemporaries) better. (Actually, that's just based off of my reviews. I'm off to re-read those as well. Just for research ;-) )

There was a LOT going on in this book and it did get a bit hard-going.The B plot of Daphne and Abe was rather well glossed over and I would have liked to see more of it. On the second reading, it was a little easier to pick up all the threads of the plot, but will every reader have a chance for a second reading?
First read for me was 3 stars, second bumped it up a bit higher. And, after working out and thinking about it a bit more, I'm going to bump it up to 4 stars. I really liked Maddie and Jack. I just really wish we had seen more of Daphne and Abe. Maybe a novella from their point of view...?

For all that this is a rather long review, I think that regular JAK readers will enjoy this story. And the excerpt from "'Til Death Do Us Part"? ... I can't hardly wait!

Secret Sisters comes out Dec. 8, 2015

River Road by Jayne Ann Krentz

Image linked from Goodreads

I quite enjoyed this return to the books I remember reading when I first started getting into romance. This story is proof that Krentz can step away from the Arcane novels to return to her contemporary novels (the ones without paranormal aspects) and still craft a really good story. At the same time this story felt fairly modern, I really felt the connection to Krentz's earlier works.
The book opens with Lucy Sheridan being taken away from a teenage party by a three-years-older Mason Fletcher. She has a crush on this enigmatic male but she's still pissed that he peremptorily pulled her out of a party that she was going to leave anyway.
But Mason has a good reason for pulling her away, one he doesn't want to tell her about. But the problem goes away when the teen at the heart of the issue vanishes.
Thirteen years later, Lucy, now a genealogical researcher, returns to Summer River to sell the property left to her by her aunt and deal with the shares in a family company left to her by her aunt's partner (Krentz isn't usually so coy about possible homosexual relationships but I prefer to believe because it's such a non-issue that she doesn't feel the need to spell it out.) Of course, Mason is also there, healing his psyche after a particularly bad outcome with his company.
Long time readers will be able to figure out pretty quickly what the twist at the end is going to be but I didn't feel like it took any enjoyment out of the story.
Why not five stars? I really wish that Lucy and Mason had kept using condoms until they were in a committed relationship.

Four stars

This book came out January 7th, 2014