by Roni Gehlke

Created on: February 19, 2009

It's another hit for Jayne Ann Krentz with her latest novel Running Hot. RH is the fifth in Krentz's Arcane Society series that revolves around the mysterious Arcane Society, a secret organization devoted to paranormal research. Krentz writes the series in two time periods and under two different pseudonyms-Krentz and Amanda Quick.

In RH the hero is an ex-cop named Luther Malone, a lifelong member of the Arcane Society. He isn't very good at using guns, but he does have a special little psychic power that can help get him out of sticky messes. Fallon Jones at Jones and Jones, the Arcane Society's detective agency, has asked Luther to work as a bodyguard for aura-reading Grace Renquist and accompany her on a trip to Maui. Not a bad gig if you can get it.

The simple case they thought would take only a short time turns into a little bit more when rogue sensitives from the evil Nightshade organization start showing up at the same hotel as Grace and Luther. Luther and Grace feel an instant attraction to each other, but they really don't have the time now to explore these growing feelings because things are about to get messy and it just might turn out to be something Luther's special gifts can't take care of so easily.

RH is a fast read and action packed all the way through. The characters work well together. Although Krentz pretty much explains the whole Arcane Society theme in Running Hot, readers that haven't read the previous books in the series should try them. It would be good to become familiar with the plot of the stories and some of the characters mentioned in this book. For example, Zack Jones is talked about several times throughout this novel. He had his own story in the previous Arcane book Sizzle and Burn.

One other note: fans that read Krentz's Eclipse Bay series might well remember not-all-together-there character Arizona Snow. Krentz reintroduces readers to the Arizona Snow character in Running Hot, giving a completely new explanation on why Arizona acts the way she does. Bringing Arizona in was just a fun side note to this book. It's all just part of the charm that can be found in Krentz's books.

This is a great book for anyone who likes a good love story with sweet love scenes. The paranormal angle takes the reader away from any sort of reality, but the ideas are original and the story line is clever. It'll be interesting to see if Fallon Jones gets the next Arcane Society book. The more we see Fallon in the series the more interesting his character becomes.

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