JAYNE CASTLE

Amaryllis

Rated 4.0
Copyright 1996
Reviewed 5/5/98 by Isolde Wehr

Futuristic

You can say at St. Helen's nearly everything is like on Earth because 200 years ago people came here to live. There was a curtain in the universe so people could travel from Earth to St. Helen's very easily. But five years after the first human arrived on St. Helen's, the curtain disappeared and this planet was cut from Earth. A travel back home for the people was not possible so they had to survive alone.

Like I said, life isn't so different there with one exception. The people found out that with the time they got paranormal abilities. "Prisms" and "Talents" are what these people are now called. But only together they can use their abilities.

Amaryllis is a full-spectrum prism and she works for Psynergy Inc. a company where every talent can "rent" a prism. Lucas needs such a prism to find the person in his company, Lodestar Explorations, who has betrayed him. Lucas, a class nine talent, never thought about Amaryllis's sense of fairness and faster than he can think, his case is solved. He then helps Amaryllis to solve the mystery about Professor Landreth's death. He was Amaryllis mentor at the university.

Lucas is fascinated with what happens when he links with Amaryllis at the psychic plane. Both feel a very strong sexual power of attraction. They discover a very strong talent which uses his abilities to manipulate others. This maybe has to do with the death of the professor and now Amaryllis doesn't want to stop anymore. She wants to find out the truth. With her investigations she makes somebody nervous. In a very dangerous situation she finds out that Lucas is a off-the-scale talent or better yet a psychic vampire.

This doesn't scare Amaryllis because her power must be also more than normal. More and more Lucas has to rescue Amaryllis because she slides from one strange situation into another. And soon he knows he can't live without her anymore.

On St. Helen's the founders make rules for a peaceful living. Marriages are arranged by marriage agencies. Will it be possible for Lucas and Amaryllis to find the true murderer and can they fight against the prejudice of a non-arranged marriage?

An interesting story but I was disappointed that it was a futuristic romance without aliens and spaceships. The whole story could have taken place on earth in our time. From a science fiction story I want more then a planet where people also have cars, TV's, casinos and strip-clubs.