August 1, 2021
In the "Fogg Lake" trilogy, wrapping up here, weird things keep happening in a tiny Washington town after an underground explosion decades ago, and nothing is weirder for Olivia LeClair than having Harlan Rancourt--long assumed dead--approach her table at a speed-dating event and tell her she must help him find the shrouded-in-mist Vortex lab. The director of Olivia's psychic investigation firm says she's got to help, regardless of Harlan's motivations; Vortex is a lethal threat.
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
October 1, 2021
A paranormal investigator is the key to finding a research lab that's been hidden for decades. Decades ago, Harlan Rancourt's family created the Foundation, a mysterious organization that attempted to harvest and control paranormal energy. After the suspicious death of his father years earlier, Harlan disappeared and went off the grid. He had little interest in running the Foundation, letting others take control of the organization while Harlan focused on finding his father's killer. Now, he must team up with the Foundation in order to discover the location of a lost lab which contains a dangerous weapon called the Vortex. Olivia LeClair's investigation firm contracts for the Foundation, and Harlan insists that she's the only one who can help him. He suspects she is a latent oracle. If Harlan can activate her ability, she will be the key to not only finding the location of the lost lab, but also to safely dismantling the Vortex. Harlan and Olivia are in a race against other parties who hope to use the Vortex as a prototype for building even more dangerous paranormal weapons, which will increase their own powers. There is inventive worldbuilding and interesting exploration of how psychic abilities evolve in humans, but Harlan and Olivia are strangely flat characters in a perfunctory romance plot. Krentz demonstrates that Harlan and Olivia are good partners, playing off each other's strengths to find the Vortex, but there is very little tension or interesting conflict driving their romantic relationship. Since they intuitively understand each other, they can focus on stopping the bad guys and recovering the Vortex; however, romance readers looking for a rich emotional journey will be disappointed. The last installment of a trilogy has inventive, interesting worldbuilding but fails to deliver a compelling romance.
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November 29, 2021
Bestseller Krentz wraps up her Fogg Lake trilogy (after All the Colors of Night) in dazzling fashion with this paranormal tour de force. Seattle private investigator Olivia LeClair has just escaped from the Speed Dating Killer with the help of a psychic weapon when she lands square in the middle of a conspiracy surrounding Vortex, a mysterious lab that conducted paranormal research in decades past. Victor Arganbright, the head of a shadowy, quasigovernment agency called the Foundation, is determined to learn the secrets of Vortex’s highly classified Bluestone Project. He taps Olivia to investigate due to her unique abilities and insists she work with the shady Harlan Rancourt, who was thought to have died five years earlier. As Olivia and Harlan race to get answers, a killer strikes and the body count rises—as does Olivia and Harlan’s passion for each other. Krentz delivers a first-rate set of characters while masterfully ratcheting up the tension on the way to a powerhouse finale. Readers will devour this smart, sexy story. Agent: Steven Axelrod, the Axelrod Agency.
Starred review from December 1, 2021
Olivia LeClair doesn't care what Harlan Rancourt thinks. She is no oracle. Olivia is simply a private investigator with a talent for reading other people's auras. Harlan doesn't care what Olivia calls herself. He knows she is the key he needs to locate one of the Vortex's long-missing paranormal research labs. Fortunately, Harlan has something Olivia wants--a possible lead on the identity of her mother's killer--which means you don't have to be psychic to know that the two of them will be working closely together for the foreseeable future. Best-selling Krentz (All the Colors of Night, 2021) expertly wraps up her Fogg Lake trilogy by smartly leaning into her preferred literary wheelhouse of paranormal-tinged danger, sizzling desire, and zippy dialogue. All these elements are expertly distilled into a fast-paced plot that includes some fun references to other books in the Jayneverse delivered to readers in lively writing imbued with a generous dose of bracing wit.
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December 30, 2021
Olivia LeClair, co-owner of Lark & LeClair, a psychic private investigation firm with an exclusive clientele, is not having much luck at speed dating. Maybe it's because she keeps asking her potential dates if they would walk into hell to find her if she disappeared? One answers yes, but he turns out to be Harlan Rancourt, a seemingly burned-out psychic who had disappeared after his father was killed in an explosion. The senior Rancourt used to run the Foundation, a powerful psychic group, and no one knows what Harlan's intentions are since he dropped out of sight for five years. Harlan's plan is to find the source of the Bluestone Project, which created powerful psychic weapons like Vortex. Olivia may be the only person capable of stopping it, but the pair won't know for sure until they find it--and their first stop is Fogg Lake. Krentz ties up her "Fogg Lake" trilogy (The Vanishing; All the Colors of Night) neatly with a bow but leaves streamers dangling, with links to her other psychic books. VERDICT Longtime fans will recognize names of people Harlan ran into during his five years away; the possibility of future books exploring those connections is exciting. Recommended for public libraries.--Melanie C. Duncan, Washington Memorial Lib., Macon, GA
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.