Third in the St Helen's series and by far my favourite. The hero in this is the third in the trio of three male friends who together spearheaded the defeat of the pirates who tried to take over the Western Isles some years ago, and who has made cameo appearances in the previous two books. Rafe Stonebreaker, grandson of the CEO of Stonebreaker Shipping, has paddled his own canoe up till now, after estrangement from his grandfather. He has made his money with stockmarket portfolios, having an astute assessment of business, courtesy of his particular psychic skill, known as a strat talent (presumably strategy, but on the planet of St Helen's where this is set and everyone has some psychic ability, strat talents are fairly rare 'exotics' who are regarded as primitive and possibly dangerous hunters).

As the story opens, Rafe is planning with his grandfather, with whom he has now reconciled in the face of a threat to the firm, to attend the forthcoming board meeting in a few months time and make his bid to become the new CEO. Rafe's cousin, who has worked for the business for years is also gunning to take over, but due to a belief instilled into him from childhood by his mother, who blames Rafe's grandfather for her husband's death, he plans to sell the business to a rival and break up the firm, throwing two thousand people out of work. St Helen's is a very family values planet and Rafe needs to be married when he attends the board meeting, or at least engaged. The problem is, divorce is unknown and everyone is carefully matched through matrimonial agencies who also take into account the compatibility of the candidates' psychic talents. A lot of eligible young women have been put off by Rafe's exotic talent, although he has secured a (fake) certification which states he is only 6 rated. In common with the heroes of the previous two volumes, in reality his talent is off the scale, higher than a 10, the official maximum.

To be able to use a psychic talent for more than a few seconds, each talent needs the co-operation of someone known as a Prism who is able to project a psychic crystal through which to focus the psychic energy. Strat talents need the assistance of a particular and rare type of Prism, known as an ice Prism, who can fine tune and adjust the prism they create. Rafe also has a sideline in private investigation and this gives him the excuse he needs to hire ice Prisms from each of the available bureaus so that he can, unbeknown to them, assess their suitability as a mate. Meanwhile, he engages the services of a representative of a top marriage agency - a continuing minor character seen in the previous two books - to find him a wife. When the story opens, the latest prism he has hired to help him with an investigation is the eponymous heroine of the novel, who has been mentioned in the other two books as the author of romantic novels featuring (supposedly mythical) psychic vampires. (As the previous novels have shown, such people are not quite as mythical as the public would like to think.)

Orchid is working part-time as an Ice Prism in between novel writing, in order to pay the bills. She is also looking for a marriage partner and having the same difficulty as Rafe. Ice Prisms such as herself are difficult to match, and she has only had one agency date in the last year, a man who turned out to be a creep wanting to use her family background and contacts to get himself a lucrative position in the academic town where she grew up. Initially, she and Rafe rub each other up the wrong way, but she comes to see that the societal preconceptions about strat talents are not true in Rafe's case, while he comes to realise that her value to him is not just her ability to craft a prism which perfectly matches the needs of his talent. The two become involved in a murder mystery which is connected with Orchid's past involvement in a project at an institute which was supposed to be delving into the ability of prisms like herself to make therapeutic adjustments to the skewed talents of the mentally ill, but instead proves to be completely unethical.

This story is much more successful in the melding of the character conflict and interaction, with the murder mystery. The sex scenes are also less heavy-handed and leave more to the imagination than book 2 in particular. Also the heroine is far more likeable than those in the previous two books, and holds her own with the somewhat taciturn hero. He in turn is an interesting character who starts off very dark and serious but gradually lightens up through his growing attraction to and then love for Orchid. A good wrap up for the series as a whole. ( )

Hoped this series keeps as I enjoyed it a lot. ( )

The final book of the St. Helens trilogy stars Orchid Adams and Rafe Stonebraker. Orchid is the author of some very popular psychic vampire romances and a part time employee of Psynergy Inc. because she is a very powerful and rare ice prism. Rafe is a hunter talent who tests way off the charts and who is planning to take over the family shipping business. However, Rafe needs a wife before he can do that.

Rafe has hired Mr. Batt who successfully found matches for his friends Lucas Trent and Nick Chastain. Even with his unique and somewhat primitive power, he has hopes that Hobart Batt can find a proper wife for him. Unfortunately, Rafe s under a time crunch and can't wait. So Rafe begins looking for his own full spectrum prism by hiring a selection of them from many agencies.

Once he hires Orchid, he knows he has found the right woman for him. He has lured her by encouraging her to help him with his after-hours private investigations. But a search for an alien artifact stolen from a research lab soon becomes more difficult and more dangerous than he had intended. It also links to some bad experiences Orchid had when she was part of a research project at a noted lab.

Besides their case, Rafe and Orchid are also dealing with family issues. Rafe's cousin is his rival for the job of CEO of Stonebraker Shipping and he seems willing to do anything to get the job. Meanwhile, someone is after Orchid and the others who were with her during the research project but she isn't sure why.

This was a fun paranormal romance set in an intriguing world. I listened to this one and enjoyed the way Tanya Eby read the story. ( )

As an off the charts level exotic talent, the hero knows that the chances of finding a wife with an agency match is next to impossible. So when he meets the heroine, she herself a powerful and rare talent, he's intrigued by her. Their connection both with their abilities and their attraction to each other drives him to do anything in order to keep her close. Despite the fact that they aggravate each other to no end and have zero in common, they quickly fall in a sexual affair. The hero is looking for a wife but his social awkwardness and his primitive talent make him less then prince charming. He bugles up his chances at first by stating she should consider marrying him because he needs a wife to take over the family business and she herself doesn't have any other prospects. With such gentlemanly words it's no surprise when she turns him down flat. The hero has had a bad experience with agency matches and as such is extremely distrustful of them. Turns out they have a lot more in common then they think-both being powerful talents and neither able to find a match with the marriage agency. They also both have a taste and a talent for private investigation which is what brought them together in the first place. The hero hires her to aid in the search of a stolen artifact which leads them into a major conspiracy with murder and corruption. I liked this book but I didn't absolutely love it. I found the ending to be rather dull and a major let down considering how much I adored the story up until that point. The chemistry between the characters was great and the fact that they didn't need a scientific match to fall in love. I really really liked the heroine. She was a cool customer. She kept her composure in every situation-especially when confronted by the hero's cousin. She really made them feel stupid with her calm demeanor-letting them know that nothing they could say would faze her. It made me admire her character a great deal. I really loved the hero because he grew so much as a character. He was able to tease and joke with her and though he didn't say he loved her until the end- it was so clearly evident in the way he spoke to her and about her. Very nice book in a very nice series. I must say all the books I've read so far in the St. Helen's world have been pretty good. ( )

This is the best in the St. Helen's world. ( )