Hiding behind an expensive, black-market-created identity, Zoe Luce has built a successful interior design business in Whispering Springs, Arizona, and hopes that she has just as successfully buried her past. She can't ignore her unique psychic abilities, however, and when she walks into a new client's bedroom and hears the walls scream and moan, she knows something terrible has happened in the house. Did her client murder his wife? She's determined to find out, but investigating a possible murder is beyond her expertise, so Zoe turns to Ethan Truax, a private detective new to the small Arizona community. Solving the murder of the businessman's wife is a piece of cake for Ethan compared to the complicated enigma that he finds in Zoe. Mysterious nightmares haunt her and when a would-be blackmailer is found dead, Zoe's past inexorably collides with her new life, threatening their dreams of a future together.

Author Jayne Ann Krentz is at the top of her form in Light in Shadow, a nonstop roller coaster ride of thrills and chills. Romance, suspense, humor, and danger challenge an intriguing cast of characters and blend seamlessly in a plot that twists, turns, and surprises. --Lois Faye Dyer

From Publishers Weekly
If Krentz's newest thriller doesn't send your pulse racing, dial your cardiologist's number. With more than 30 bestsellers under her belt, Krentz (Smoke in Mirrors; Uneasy Alliance) is primed for another roaring success with this rewarding romantic thriller. Zoe Luce is the premier interior decorator in Whispering Springs, Ariz., hampered by one severe handicap; when she enters a room in which a murder or other violent act has taken place, she can sense the pain and rage echoing from the walls. When her uncanny ability leads her to suspect that a local businessman has murdered his wife, she finds herself unexpectedly allied with Ethan Truax, Whispering Springs's newest private investigator. Both have suffered losses in the past, but just when it looks as if true love may be in the offing, Ethan discovers that Zoe is not who she pretends to be. She knows things she shouldn't, operates under a black market-issued identity and wakes screaming from nightmares about a mysterious place she calls Xanadu. Krentz's storytelling shines with authenticity and dramatic intensity: no opportunity for a thrill is missed, and her characters are skillfully crafted. Tightly written and packed with twists and shockers at every turn, this top-notch thriller keeps readers on the edge of their seats till the explosive ending. Doubleday Book Club, Rhapsody main selection; BOMC, Mystery Guild alternate selection. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
It's not smart of Zoe Luce to ask a private investigator to help her ferret out the dark secret of one of the divorced women whose homes she redecorates, for Zoe has a few secrets of her own. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
Joyce Bean shines as she draws readers quickly into the world of Zoe Luce, an interior designer with the ability to sense when violence has occurred in a room she enters. When Zoe hires private detective Ethan Truax to help her uncover the truth about one of her clients, she doesn't begin to suspect that he will be forced to help Zoe protect the truth about her own former life. Bean's narration clearly highlights the turmoil behind Zoe's quest and easily differentiates the large cast. This novel will captivate Krentz fans, as well as those who like romantic suspense. E.J.F. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Zoe Luce is not your average interior decorator living on the lam from a mental asylum in Whispering Springs, Arizona. No, she and a friend escaped from an exclusive institution whose main function is to keep relatives of wealthy families quiet. Glad to be free, Zoe has launched a new and so far successful interior-design business, but she is troubled by a client whose bedroom strongly suggests that his separation from his wife may be of a more permanent nature than mere divorce. She hires Ethan Truax, the cheaper of the two investigators listed in the phone book in this small town, to find out the truth without cluing him in to her disturbing psychic ability to hear emotions emanating from rooms. Ethan takes her case because he just moved to town and she is his only client, but he has a bulldog sense of justice. Then a more serious problem arises: Zoe's past is catching up with her, and someone from that heinous institution is attempting blackmail. She now must decide not only if she can trust Ethan with her secrets, but also if their affair will withstand his distrust of psychics. Krentz blends romance with suspense and humor. Patty Engelmann
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
Another glowing achievement from Krentz...her most successful hardcover ever now brought to you in paperback!

Download Description
"Zoe Luce is a successful interior designer in the Arizona town of Whispering Springs who's developed an unusual career specialty-helping recently divorced clients redesign their homes, to help them forget the past and start anew. But Zoe knows that some things can't be covered up with a coat of paint. And when she senses that one of her clients may be hiding a dark secret, she enlists P.I. Ethan Truax to find the truth. Working together, they solve the mystery . . . and barely escape with their lives. But Ethan's exquisite detection skills are starting to backfire on Zoe: she never wanted to let him find out about her former life; she never wanted to reveal her powerful, inexplicable gift for sensing the history hidden within a house's walls; she never wanted him to know that ""Zoe Luce"" doesn't really exist. She never wanted to fall in love with him. Now, no matter how much she resists, Ethan may be her only hope-because the people she's been running from have found her. And just when Zoe dares to dream of a normal life and a future with the man she loves, her own past starts to shadow her every step-and threatens to take her back into a nightmare."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Zoe Luce is a successful interior designer in the Arizona town of Whispering Springs who's developed an unusual career specialty-helping recently divorced clients redesign their homes, to help them forget the past and start anew. But Zoe knows that some things can't be covered up with a coat of paint. And when she senses that one of her clients may be hiding a dark secret, she enlists P.I. Ethan Truax to find the truth.

Working together, they solve the mystery . . . and barely escape with their lives. But Ethan's exquisite detection skills are starting to backfire on Zoe: she never wanted to let him find out about her former life; she never wanted to reveal her powerful, inexplicable gift for sensing the history hidden within a house's walls; she never wanted him to know that "Zoe Luce" doesn't really exist. She never wanted to fall in love with him.

Now, no matter how much she resists, Ethan may be her only hope-because the people she's been running from have found her. And just when Zoe dares to dream of a normal life and a future with the man she loves, her own past starts to shadow her every step-and threatens to take her back into a nightmare.

Author Biography: Jayne Ann Krentz, who has also written under the names Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle, has thirty-two New York Times bestsellers to her credit.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Krentz's latest opens with an intriguing scene: interior designer Zoe Luce enters the bedroom of her latest client and is immediately assaulted by waves of terror, rage, screams and violence emanating from the walls. This sensitivity to her surroundings is Zoe's innate gift, and she immediately suspects that her client's wife has not left him, as he claims, but was murdered. She seeks out private eye Ethan Truax to discover the truth. But soon a much more tangled plot reveals itself: Zoe herself is an escapee from a mental hospital, to which she was committed after the murder of her husband, and hired goons are trying to track her down and return her to the institution. Narrator Bean deftly differentiates between the myriad character voices, including pompous Dr. Ian Harper (the asylum's crooked owner), raspy-voiced security consultant Singleton, simpering Kimberly Cleland (wife of Zoe's scheming cousin), Southern-accented Bonnie (Ethan's sister-in-law), and dramatic, glamorous Acadia (Zoe's friend and fellow asylum escapee). Krentz weaves the numerous threads into a satisfying mystery. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Forecasts, Nov. 4, 2002). (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

It's not smart of Zoe Luce to ask a private investigator to help her ferret out the dark secret of one of the divorced women whose homes she redecorates, for Zoe has a few secrets of her own. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews