Zinnia Mass Market Paperback – June 1, 1997

Jayne Castle, Amanda Quick or any name she wants to write under is an excellent author who writes books with good characters and good plots! Her books are always fun to read!!

This book was like welcoming back an old friend. I read Amaryllis last year and have to admit to being less than enthusiastic about it. I have read all of the sci-fi/fantasy/romance books written by Jayne Castle and was excited to find that there were three older books written along these same lines which I didn't have. I immediately ordered all three from Amazon resellers and just couldn't wait to start reading them. Last year I read the first one and was not encouraged to try the second in the series. Let me say right now that I am glad, glad, glad that I went on ahead and read Zinnia.Zinnia had been dubbed "The Scarlet Lady" by the tabloid press when she appeared in a photo taken by a hidden cameraman as she exited the bedroom of one of the leading citizens of New Seattle on the space colony called St. Helens. The photo-opportunity was a set up. Zinnia had been consulting with a man she thought would be a client regarding the redecoration of his home. Instead, this client wanted attention drawn away from himself and a certain aspect of his private life and willingly ruined Zinnia's reputation in order to do so. She continued to dress exclusively in red as a form of defiance toward those who believed her guilty of the insinuations. Most people on St. Helens have psychic abilities of some type and level of proficiency but Zinnia is a little different. Her talent lies in being able to form the "prism" through which a little understood matrix-talent can focus and utilize their thought processes.Nick Chaistain is considered a bad boy type among the upper levels of society because of his illegitimate birth and because he owns a hugely profitable casino. His matrix-talent is so strong that he has never allowed himself to be tested. If people knew how strong his mental abilities were, they would likely consider him to be dangerous. Matrix-talents tend to be mentally unstable and are thought to be "a little weird". Nick keeps his talent carefully hidden. Customers in his casino would not want to know that he could very easily analyze the probability of their winning or losing. Nick and Zinnia team up when they accidently find that she is the only pure prism he has ever found to use his talen through and they both want to solve the mystery surrounding the death of Morris Fenwick. Even if they do both have slightly differing motives.I really enjoyed reading this book. These two main characters are absolutely right for each other. She is so sweet and good and nice and he is so tough and manipulative and misunderstood. Ms Castle has hit another home run for me. I began this book with little hope that I would enjoy it. I was not only able to enjoy it, now I can't wait to get on and read Orchid's story. Somehow I got the wrong impression about these books. I thought they were written about three sisters but I know now that that is not correct. They all take place in the same fantasy world, but the women are not related at all. The three male characters do, however, have a link between them even though it is not a family link.I'm so glad to be back enjoying this series. Yes, Ms Castle. Thank you. I really loved the descriptions of the plants in the garden maze. Being a gardner myself I could absolutely relate to your descriptions. Even though they were super creepy!

I enjoyed the first of the St Helens Books and I thoroughly enjoyed the second.High class talents, a matrix, murder, blood sucking plants, a nutty professor and a high class psychic vampire. All those elements and great writing made it a book, I could not put down. Love the storyline. I’m looking forward to book 3. Jayne Castle did it again.

I bought this straight to paperback novel when it was first published in paperback (with a zinnia flower on the cover). I have read my paperback version multiple times. The story of matrix talent Nick and prism Zinnia is a very fun read, a classic in Jayne's romance, witty repartee, and suspense style.ATTENTION AMAZON!!!I purchased this kindle version initially for traveling but I now have vision problems and use the kindle ebook to increase the font size. This is the first time I have read it in a couple of years. I am noticing as I read my enlarged type size kindle version, there are a bunch of formatting errors and misspellings in the text that are not in the paperback versions (the newer paperbacks have a brooding Nick on the cover). The misspellings are less annoying than the missing spaces in the text that should be there between change of time and place within a chapter (a demarcation of change of scene). These missing gaps of white space (that should be there) are very disconcerting and ruin the narrative flow of the kindle version of the novel. Amazon, please have publisher get an editor to fix the kindle version of the novel and remove this reading problem. Because of my partial blindness in one eye, I certainly do not need messed up formatting to make reading even more difficult.

I love Jayne Castle books, especially the ones about Harmony. Jayne is an exceptional writer. These books are so good that I read them over and over again. She has quite an imagination and she brings Harmony to life in her novels. She creates great characters like Zinnia Spring. I love the three "flower" books as I call them: "Zinnia", "Amaryllis" and "Orchid". These three women are the best characters anyone's ever created and I've read all three books numerous times and I just read them all again for at least the tenth time and I know I'll read them again in the months to come. "Zinnia" is a very entertaining book full of laughter, adventure and romance. It's worth the reasonable price. I guarantee that you won't want to put it down once you start reading it.

I bought this to supplement my paperback copy which is wearing out. I'm trying to get as many of her books on Kindle as possible as I picture myself in a nursing home somewhere being forced into the weekly sing-along out of sheer boredom. So as they come available at decent (I mean cheap cheap cheap) I get them. Ok I loved this ,our ladies are dealing with extreme alpha males (as usual) and unique physic powers that require teamwork to work. I really like that aspect as opposed to her light series (which I still love and buy) because there are some cool twists to these powers, ever hear of a physic vampire? The only thing I questioned was that their abilities seemed to be gender specific. Buy it you can never go wrong with Jayne Castle--Amanda Quick-- Jayne Ann Krentz.

The story follows the arc of the Harmony stories and introduces the concept of the Talent and the Prizm: the need for the balance of talent utilization. We are introduces to a wonderful cast of characters and possibilities. I loved the introduction of sly humor and the problems of the characters which they had to solve. I look forward to more of the stories of this talent/prism I find all of the harmony stories to be entertaining and love the moral of the story arc.

The setting is a bit different than your usual love stories but that adds to the plot. It is a great book to read and I also enjoyed the other two books in this series.

We're back on St Helen's and this time the main characters are Zinnia and Nick. I particularly liked Nick, he was the sort of man that appeals to me. Confident and careless of others opinions of him. I loved his tacky decor, his authority and total beleif that he could buy himself respectability. As usual with Ms Krentz there is a mystery to resolve, threats and danger, and a wide cast of extra's, including some from the previous book in this mini-series. The writer has really given a sense of time and place and as usual the characters are well rounded, with individual personalities whilst not getting away from the basic romantic tropes. Light and easy to read, great for when you want to lose yourself for a few hours and don't want to have to concentrate too much. A nice book, that leaves a nice feeling

The book arrived quickly and was well-packed, as described and lightweight as a story but rather trite in content though readable.

Excelent

Wonderful book

ok