Customer Reviews

Orchid

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the author's third (and last?)romance set in the futuristic Earth colony of St. Helens, where humans have evolved to possess psychic powers. There are two different types of powers. Talents possess pyschic power to perform specific tasks, such as form illusions, perform complex math, garden, etc. However, talents need the aid of prisms to project and control their powers. The world of St. Helens are governed by the social rule of marriage for life. Divorce is forbidden, so the job of finding one's mate is carried out by marriage agencies.

the characters:
Rafe Stonebraker is a high level strat-talent. His psychic abilities allows him to predict human behavior (hunting instinct, competition). He is the heir and grandson of the current CEO of Stonebraker Shipping, a powerful corporation that's in the high social circles of St. Helen's. He abandoned his position and established his own investing company, thereby estranging himself from the rest of his family. He also enjoys his hobby of performing investigative work at night.

Orchid Adams is a strong prism who works at Psynergy Inc. She is also a writer of romance psychic vampire novels. Her family are all academics who live and work in a research center community. She too was raised there, but she left and established herself in the city of New Seattle at her first chance.

the story:
Stonebraker Shipping is in the myst of a financial failure. Rafe wants succeed his grandfather's position as CEO after he retires to save the company. In order to win the approval of the board of directors, Rafe has to present himself to be a responsible and settled down person. That means he has to find a wife quickly. After seeing his friends' successful marriages to high level prisms (Lucas Trent and Nick Chastain, the main characters of the first two novels Amaryllis and Zinnia), Rafe too wants to find a wife who is a strong prism that can handle his powers. He employs Orchid to work on some of his simple investigations. However, a case of a missing alien relic have lead them to a trail of murder cases that were somehow linked. At the same time, their love blossoms...

overall comments:
Orchid is my favorite of the three stories in this series. The heroine is strong and intelligent. The characterization of Rafe emotionally are very descriptive and informative. His thoughts and emotions flowed as I was reading the book. It would be good to have more additions to this series, but I think it ended with this book.

"Orchid" can be read either on its own or after reading "Amaryllis" and "Zinnia" (see my reviews on those books), and it is exactly as great as them.

To sum up, this novel is a wonderful futuristic paranormal romance written by Jayne Castle (also known as Jayne Ann Krentz). To enjoy it you will need some (or a lot of)imagination: the plot is set in the colony of St. Helens, where the pioneers from Earth that settled there were stranded after the connection between Earth and St. Helens disappeared (+ or - 200 years before the beginning of this story), and people have developed psychic abilities unknown in Earth (but needed by them to survive in a new world). Anyway, given that, you will enjoy a wonderful novel.

The main characters are Orchid Adams and Rafe Stonebraker. Rafe Stonebraker is a highly talented strat, who is looking for a wife. His search (or hunt) will take him to Orchid Adams, a full spectrum ice prism who seems to be all wrong, but feels right... The plot includes also some investigations and a lot of really good love scenes. You cannot help but be involved in this novel. Seemingly bizarre at first (specially if you haven't read "Amaryllis" or "Zinnia" before starting with "Orchid"), it bewitches the reader...

You end up wanting more. I've just bought "After Dark", by the same author. Hope it is as good as this one!!!.

This is the third and last of the St. Helens triligy. I really wish she would write more in this universe.

Orchid Adams is one of my favorite characters. After hearing about her in AMARYLLIS, and ZINNIA, we finally meet her in this book.

Orchid writes PV (psychic vampires)novels. Imagine her surprise to meet a real PV, while she works as a 10+ Prism. A prism is a psychic who helps a psychic with a talent,use his talent. Sound confusing? It really isn't. It is just nature's way of controlling powerful psychics.

Rafe Stonebraker is a powerful talent. He's looking for a wife, since he is a strat-talent (hunting and tracking), one looked on as somewhat exotic, he decides to hunt his own wife. His biggest problem is that he is an off the wall talent. In other words he's more than a 10. Which would make other people wary, if they knew. He would be considered a PV.

He also has a list of qualities he is looking for in a mate, because there is no divorce on St. Helens. Added to that he needs to marry before taking over Stonebraker Shipping.

Rafe is an undercover detective, for a select few who know about him. His new case concerns an Ice prism, who supposedly stole an ancient relic. It turns out that Orchid is an Ice prism, too. She is also a friend of the Ice prism he is investigating. It seems Ice prisms are few and hard to find.

With a mind and stubornness all her own, she and Rafe set out to find the truth.

From a green and blue wedding in Northville to A showdown with another strat-talent, Rafe and Orchid entertain us to the max.

I loved this book and didn't want it to end. Enjoy!!!!!

Orchid is the 3rd book in the paranormal, mystery, romance series set in the future on a distant planet. Once again, Jayne Castle has written a fun, lighthearted story about the `talented' inhabitants of New St Helens. I liked the story, though by book three I pretty much had figured out that Orchid would not go to bed with the male hunk after the first explosive kissing session. Like Amaryllis and Zinnia, a girl can't be too easy, after all, fool that she is. I also figured out the ending early on because this book seemed to follow the same general formula as Amaryllis and Zinnia. But no matter, the descriptions of life and customs in New St Helens kept me interested and still hungry for more. I hope to see the series continued!

"Orchid" is the first Jayne Castle and futuristic book I've ever read. The plot with mystery and a mix of romance was a perfect blend with the backdrop of a futuristic world not too far away seemed to catch me and made me hate to put down the book. I am looking forward to any of her books in the near future.

I've read the other two books in this trilogy, "Amaryllis" and "Zinnia". My favorite was "Zinnia" and "Orchid" was quite a bit behind that book when it came to my enjoyment. Having said that, I will say that I am a huge fan of the fantasy/sci-fi/romance novels of Jayne Castle and fully intend to read each and every one she publishes.

Now on to "Orchid". Orchid Adams is a writer of psychic vampire romance fiction. (A psychic vampire novel involves a very strong talent mentally kidnapping a - usually virginal - prism and forcing her to do his bidding. This, or course, turns into true love because the vampire is just misunderstood.) So far she has written three novels. I had hoped that Jayne Castle would give us some idea of what it might be like for an author to be involved in crafting a book. No. This book is all about Orchid's other job. She works part-time as a prism for Psynergy, Inc. Orchid, however, is not just a prism, she is an ice-prism. She has a talent which is truly remarkable and unusual among the general population.

Rafe Stonebreaker (where do authors come up with these names?) is a psychic strat-talent which means that he is skilled in finding, locating, hunting, tracking, tracing. Those types of skills. They help him earn a living as a financial advisor by using his analytical skills on the stock market. As a hobby he likes to investigate problems such as finding stolen books or alien artifacts posed by friends and aquaintances. Rafe's talent is looked down upon by most of the inhabitants of the space colony St. Helens because his skills are considered primitive, a throwback to earlier times when hunting, force and violence were required to survive. Strat-talents are often criminals. But of course, not our Rafe. I liked him. I REALLY liked him in the other two books when there was a total air of mystery about him but even after meeting him in this story, I still liked him. He is in need of a wife and has registered with an official marriage brokerage firm. Orchid is working with him to provide him with a prism so that he can concentrate his strat-talent, but his ulterior motive is to use as many prisms as possible to help find a wife for himself. Orchid does not meet any of his requirements for a wife but he can't seem to stay away from her.

A good book. I was somewhat disappointed because I read this one just days after finishing "Zinnia" and there are many instances of dialogue and situations which are word for word the same in these two books. As a mystery it seemed forced. The two culprits (yes, Orchid is caught two times by two different bad guys) were not fleshed out at all. Not very well done, in my opinion. The family conflict is settled much, much too easily. If it was that easy to solve, why had it gone on so long in the first place? This one is not my favorite but I do like Jayne Castle's writing and, as I've said before, will buy any other books in this genre which she writes.

Orchid is the follow up book to the futuristic stories Amaryllis and Zinnia, in the off world old Earth colony of Harmony on the planet of St. Helens. When the first children of this colony grew up, it was discovered they were gifted with one of two talents: psychic ability or what they call a prism. The psychics were powerful, but they cannot control this ability, focus it for long periods of time. For that they need a prism. A prism channels their power and amplifies it. However, a psychic and a prism must be of the same level of strength or the psychic can overload and burn out the prism.

Orchid Adams is a strong prism, and she is just what Rafe Stonebreaker needs: a wife! He is trying to take over control of his grandfathers shipping cooperation, and to do that he needs a wife to make him appear settled. Only problem: is he is an off the chart psychic talent that has made placing him with in the Harmony romance matching agencies a bit of a problem. He has contracted Orchid to help him with some private investigations, but he soon decides to do some matchmaking of his own, and encourages her to enter in a Harmony temporary marriage, a cover to aid him in taking power of the shipping business.

When Orchid's friend steals an ancient artifact, Rafe and she are tangled into a deep mystery of a mad killer desperate to cover his mistakes.

Once again, Jayne Anne Krentz, writing under the Castle name, gives us the dazzling shine of her talent! This is some of her best writing over the last decade, JAK at her very best.
Early this year, they released the first two tales Amaryllis and Zinnia under the title HARMONY. So if you enjoyed them, you will most definitely wish to have Orchid as well. After Dark and After Glow are set on this same world, too.

People that love Nora Robert's JD Robb series should snap these up. These are in the same style. The romance sizzles, the banter is dazzling - it just does not get any better than this.

it was an excellent read. i loved the way Rafe and Orchid went at eachother, both physically and mentally. it was charming.

This was my first book of the futuristic trilogy that I've read from Jayne Castle. I loved it. After reading about Rafe Stonebraker and Orchid Adams I went on and read Amaryliss and Zinnia, both which I also loved.

I loved it!!!! Ms. Castle further developed the world of St. Helens which she created in Amarallys and again her characters of Orchard and Rafe were wonderful.

I hope that Ms. Castle will contine with this series and further develop this world or perhaps a special book about their (Amarisllis,Zinnia,Orchard) children?