Two unlikely allies search for the secrets of their pasts while on the run within the Alien world of Harmony in the thrilling new novel by New York Times bestselling author Jayne Castle.
Oliver Rancourt, a man with a unique talent—they say you never see him coming—is also there. Leona knows she must not underestimate him. Attempting to make a discreet exit, she stumbles over the body of a waiter wearing the emblem of a dangerous cult. Before she can alert authorities, a police raid sends the reception into chaos. To avoid being arrested, Leona slips away with Oliver—a risky decision that gets her fired.
Now forced to work together, Leona and Oliver pursue an investigation that leads them to the town of Lost Creek where the locals are obsessed with a chilling legend involving a long-dead cult leader and illicit paranormal experiments. But Leona knows the real danger may be the irresistible attraction between herself and Oliver.
I enjoy this author under all of the names she uses, even though I am not usually a fan of the more sci-fi leaning of books,, I do enjoy this author, so I gave this one a chance. And, it was a lot of fun. The otherworldly stuff is well explained in a note at the beginning, so even though I was picking this up at number seventeen in the series, I wasn't lost.
I am not able to speak to the others in the series, but this one didn't really feel all that sci-fi, or at least I didn't find those elements to be distracting, and that is probably a better way to phrase it.
Leona and Oliver were great together. Their inner dialogue as well as the conversations they have with one another were a strength of the book and are honestly a strength of the author in all of her titles. The mystery was interesting, the romance was not the focus of the title, but it was present enough that the development of the relationship and the characters throughout the title was fulfilling.
I enjoyed and recommend this title.
inside, not to keep humans from opening it. She touched it with her fingertips, rezzed
her senses, and unlocked the door.
The dust bunnies tumbled out. They bounced up and down in front of her-she got the
feeling she was being thanked, and then all of them-including the one that had gotten
her attention in the gallery and led her to the lab-dashed out the door and vanished into
the dark hallway. Evidently they didn't need her help to escape the mansion.
"Guess my work here is done" she said under her breath.
But the discovery of the imprisoned dust bunnies put a new light on the Society. She
had been well aware that the organization was one of the university's major donors-that
was why she had been sent to the gala-and she'd suspected that several of the
members dabbled in the gray market. Avid collectors were obsessive by nature. They
rarely went out of their way to ensure the legal provenance of valuable artifacts.
But discovering that the Society was conducting research using dust bunnies as test
subjects was too much. It could not be overlooked. She would report the news to the
director of the para-archaeology department when she met with him in the morning.
Morton Bullinger might be willing to ignore issues of sketchy provenances, but even he
could not ignore this. He would have to take the information to the university's board of
directors and they would be forced to confront the endowment fund people. There was
no way the institution could continue to accept money from the Society.
She started toward the door. She was tempted to examine some of the more interesting
artifacts on the workbenches, but she had taken enough risks. She could not afford to
get caught inside the lab.
She changed her mind when the beam of her flashlight swept across a gracefully
curved black crystal bowl in a glass case. She could feel the disturbing vibe of power in
the object from across the room.
Curious, she went closer and rezzed her senses a little. The bowl was definitely Alien in
origin and there was a lot of energy locked in the object. Fascinated, she put her
fingertips on the lock of the glass case.
A sharp frisson of awareness sparked across her senses, rattling her already tense
nerves. She was no longer alone. She whirled around, struggling to come up with a
believable explanation for her obviously illicit presence in the lab. She was good at
thinking on her feet but there were not a lot of options here. Something along the lines
of the classic I was looking for the restroom would have to do. It was weak, but
combined with her temporarily famous status and her connection to the university, it
might work.
She opened her mouth to start talking very fast but she went blank when the beam of
her flashlight illuminated the man in the slightly rumpled tux standing in the doorway.
She recognized him immediately. She had picked him out of the crowd earlier in the
evening when she realized she was being watched. Somehow she had known he was
the one who had been keeping an eye on her. She had concluded that he was either
undercover security or a professional antiquities thief. The one thing she had been
certain of was that he was not the boring, harmless-looking collector he was pretending
to be.
Oh, shit.
"Good evening, Dr. Griffin" he said. He adjusted his black-framed glasses. "I thought I'd
lost you. Are you selecting a little souvenir to take with you when you leave tonight? I
don't blame you. There are some very nice items in the Society's collection."
***
He thought she was a thief.
Under the circumstances, that made sense-after all, she was not supposed to be in the
lab. But that left his own status unclarified. Was he a security guard, or did he plan to
steal one of the artifacts himself? If she were a betting woman, she would have put her
money down on the latter possibility. She was quite sure she was dealing with a
professional thief. He probably saw her as competition and, maybe, a threat.
There was nothing notable about him-nothing at all-and that was precisely what had
given her goose bumps. A man like this one ought not be the sort who got overlooked in
a crowd, yet that was exactly what had happened out there in the ballroom. He had
moved through the throng of well-dressed guests as if he were a ghost.
Not that he went completely unnoticed. On a subconscious, psychic level, people were
aware of him. She had watched, intrigued, as individuals moved out of his way when
they sensed his aura. A powerful energy field had that effect on others.
As far as she could tell, she was the only one who had really paid attention to him. She
was pretty sure there was only one explanation for his near-invisibility-he possessed
some serious talent. Yet he was going out of his way to try to conceal it. His ability to do
that was even more interesting.
At one point he had cruised past her while she sipped a glass of sparkling water and
pretended to admire a statue of the Society's founder. She'd caught a glimpse of
specter-cat eyes behind the lenses of the black-framed glasses and picked up the vibe
of his powerful energy field. It would be very easy to underestimate this man. She would
not make that mistake.
Excerpted from It Takes a Psychic by Jayne Castle Copyright © 2025 by Jayne Castle.
Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be
reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
About the Author
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Image Credit Marc von Borstel