Illusion Town by Jayne Castle
Series: Harmony, #13
Science Fiction/Action-Adventure/Romance
July 26, 2016
Jove

Reviewed by Tori

A new adventure begins on Harmony…  

With its opulent casinos and hotels, the desert city of Illusion Town is totally unique—and will take you on a thrill ride you’ll never forget.

Hannah West isn’t the first woman to wake up in Illusion Town married to a man she barely knows, but she has no memory of the ceremony at all. For that matter, neither does Elias Coppersmith, her new husband. All either can remember is that they were on the run…

With Hannah’s dubious background and shaky para-psych profile, she could have done much worse. The cooly competent mining heir arouses her curiosity—as well as other parts of her mind and body. And even her dust bunny likes him.

But a honeymoon spent retracing their footsteps leads Hannah and Elias into the twisting underground catacombs, where secrets from both their pasts will come to light—and where the energy of their clashing auras will grow hot enough to burn…(Goodreads)

Illusion Town is the thirteenth installment in Jayne Castle’s futuristic adventurous Harmony series. Castle takes us back to Harmony and involves us in another mystery involving the illustrious Coopersmith family. Though it is the 13th in a series, it can easily be read as a standalone.

Set in a post apocalypse style version of Las Vegas-called Illusion Town- Castle introduces a marriage of convenience between a research scientist and a finder of lost items. A date between Elias Coppersmith and Hannah West ends up with them waking up in a motel with no memory of their date beyond a certificate of an MC and the fuzzy feeling from being psi-burned. As their memories slowly come back, we learn Elias had met Hannah months earlier when she helped him locate an heirloom ring. Intrigued by her emails, Elias convinced Hannah to break her edict about not meeting clients in person and going out on a date with him.  On the date, Elias learns some of his people have been trapped behind a psi gate and he had offered Hannah a job involving her talent as a Dreamlight but someone or somebodies went to a lot of effort to stop them from going to the site. Various plotlines slowly materialize, from Hannah’s ancestral claim of an ancient artifact of immense proportions  to Elias’s latest archaeological find that gives the storyline the appearance of suspense and intrigue as Castle begins to leads us down a road of discovery.

I have always had an ambivalent relationship with Castle’s Harmony series. I either love the book to death or I’m completely disappointed with it. Illusion Town falls smack dab in the middle. The storyline and characters weren’t bad per say but very low key. Solid writing and a decently plotted storyline are evident though the energy, humor, and general pizzazz *insert jazz hands* I usually associate with this series was missing. The first 40% is nothing more than Hannah and Elias “talking” their way through their memory loss and piecing things back together. Castle drops clues to help illuminate the way but I found my attention wandering on multiple occasions. The job Elias needed Hannah for showed some promise of action but again, we are “talked” through it. It’s all very cut and dry. There seemed to be a checklist of things to be accomplished and you could see it being applied with each plotline.

There were also some logistics of the story that didn’t makes sense.

 Character wise, I found Hannah and Elias interesting as individuals in regards to their talents and jobs, but lacking in a relatable warmth and chemistry. Perhaps this is because both are logical, rational, extremely emotionally guarded individuals. Hannah’s parents were murdered and she has never been able to locate any other family. Add in her talents as a rare and powerful dreamlight which automatically labels her as unstable and a risk in intimate relationships. Oh my god, now she has me repeating her. *sigh* Elias is an engineer/researcher. He comes from a passionate, close-knit family whose emotions and dramatic scenes are well known though he is pretty even keeled. Apparently, scientists can’t be emotional or dramatic. *shrugs*

As the story progresses, we are introduced to various friends and entrepreneurs of Illusion Town while Hannah and Elias work to discover who is out to get them. It’s all very family oriented and pushes the notion that while Hannah may be an orphan, she has a very strong familial base. Once we hit the last ¼ of the book, it’s here I begin to see what I was missing. We get intimate thoughts from Elias and Hannah concerning their relationship. I began to see some sparks of passion and emotion to back up their words. The action and suspense picks up along with the energy as we race towards the finish line.

Though Illusion Town had its moments and the last part, along with Virgil the dust bunny, saved it for me, it wasn’t my favorite in the series. I found it overall too linear and circumspect for me. Not to say I won’t read the next one, I just hope it takes us back to Rainshadow Island because that is really where my love for this world seems to lie.

Grade: C-

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