Crystal Flame, by Jayne Ann Krentz

Another of my February vacation reads: Crystal Flame, by Jayne Anne Krentz. This is one of her futuristic / alternate reality books, some of which I've very much enjoyed (see for instance Sweet Starfire, Amaryllis or Orchid).

Kalena has been trained as a assassin. Her mission is to kill the man behind the destruction of her family's House, the House of the Harvest Ice. She can not be free of her familial obligations until she kills him.

The first step is to enter into a marriage contract with a man called Fire Whip. Neither one knows that their lives are in danger from the people who are closest to them.

This one was a C+, like The Ties That Bind. BTW, these two are my lowest-graded JAK books so far.

I didn't much enjoy it, but it wasn't bad, so it gets a passing grade. The problem was that it was all about males vs. females, and though in the end the verdict was that neither is more powerful or more important than the other, I didn't much like the whole power-play process through which we got to that answer.

Plus, unlike JAK's other futuristics, this one felt cheesy and the philosophical stuff sounded like mumbo-jumbo. Usually, it makes more sense ;-)