Recently, I noticed there is a new Jayne Castle (AKA Jayne Ann Krentz) futuristic Harmony book coming out in November. That got me in the mood to do a reread of that entire series. There are about a dozen so there’s plenty of time to reread them all. And, hopefully, talk about them here in some depth.
the world of Harmony
So consider this an introduction to the larger series. In Bridal Jitters she first uses the world of Harmony, a lost colony of Earth, as the setting. The time is roughly 200 years after the connection to Earth was lost. In that time, the settlers have managed to advance to a civilization roughly equivalent to contemporary Earth. As much as I love this series, I’ve never been quite sure when the colonists left Earth. Castle/Krentz seems to intentionally keep that detail vague. Doesn’t really matter to the stories being told but it is a curious detail that she never addresses. At least not that I’ve noticed.
Anyway, for the most part the setting and world is very much like contemporary Earth. Something that makes the world of Harmony very easy to relate to. There is one major exception to that. Pretty much everyone since the second generation on the planet has developed various forms and levels of psychic abilities. Mainly because Harmony is littered with the quartz crystal ruins of a previous civilization. Those crystals have very strong psychic properties. And the humans are apparently tuning into those properties more and more over time.
Or maybe it’s the planet itself that’s slowly affecting the colonists. They don’t know because they are still learning to adapt to their new home. And learning more about the long missing earlier inhabitants each time a new discovery is made. Of course humans being who they are, someone is always up to no good. Those mysteries are definitely major parts of the stories going forward.
There’s a reason why I love this series. These stories are romances with healthy dollops of mystery, a bit of fantasy and some light science fiction. And one might even say some of the characters, particularly in later books, begin approaching “super” hero status. What’s not to love?
But lets not get ahead of ourselves.
Bridal Jitters novella
So, in this story, Virginia Burch and Sam Gage have contracted a Marriage of Convenience. They do this primarily to merge their two business, and are on their first job together. Of course, things are never that easy. But to be honest this story is so very short I’m tap dancing around spoilers like crazy here. And spending most of my time talking about the world and series. Which is appropriate in a way. I mean it’s an enjoyable little romance but, honestly, it’s main function is to introduce Harmony. Oh, and serve as a Halloween short story because it first appeared in an anthology for Halloween called Charmed.
I can say by way of explanation that in local terms she’s a tangler and he’s a ghost hunter. Remember those two names because they come up a lot in the series. Tanglers deal with the shadowy illusion traps that are prevalent underground on Harmony. It’s a job that’s just as important in it’s own way as being a ghost hunter. Tanglers do tend to be more versatile in their career choices, though. Many are even academics in various fields related to exploring underground like archeologists and researchers. And so tanglers generally get more respect than ghost hunters, who are considered little more than hired muscle or bodyguards. Ghost hunters can psychically deal with the extremely dangerous acid green energy “ghosts” that pop up underground in the catacombs. You know, the catacombs that everyone is exploring so eagerly. Which, admittedly, makes hunters very important to the world of Harmony. So important that they have their own local guilds and pretty much control access to the underground.
Harmony or Ghost Hunter series?
Of course, not everyone is happy with the power the Ghost Hunters exert. That discontent directly or indirectly affects most of the stories in the series. So much so that I’ve noticed that most people, including Castle/Krentz herself, can’t seem to decide what to call this group of books. Sometimes it’s called the Harmony series. Other times, the Ghost Hunter series. Personally, I prefer Harmony as the label because that’s the world. But also because developments later on take some of the focus off the Ghost Hunters as a character group. Not completely but some.
Put it this way, I was very surprised the title of the book coming out in November is Guild Boss. Guild bosses are the leader of a local guild of ghost hunters. So are we going back to the Ghost Hunters as the main focus now? Hmmm.
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