Corporate Affair, by Jayne Ann Krentz

I've got only 4 more books to post about from my summer vacation, and I'm trying to finish with this. First: Corporate Affair, by Jayne Ann Krentz. This one's a 1982 series romance, book # 1in the Silhouette Desire line. Have I already mentioned that JAK is the only author I trust enough to read her early 80s books without knowing anything about them?

Businesswoman Kalinda Brady, arrives at a small skying Colorado town intending to get her revenge on her former fiancé, by leading him on and then rejecting him. Before she can do that, she meets Rand Alistair, who owns a small gallery in town, and seems to be just a laid-back small business owner. He manages to convince her to forgo her petty revenge, and they have what Kalinda considers a one-night-stand.

She returns to Denver and to her business the following morning, and is surprised to hear that her ex intends to force a hostile takeover of her company. She's even more surprised when Rand, who isn't at all what he seemed, comes to the rescue.

Even though this was very much a blast from the past, it was a good one: my grade is a B+.

Why a "blast from the past"? Simple, it was full of the corporate sharks and hostile takeovers fashionable at the time, and man, the protagonists dressed accordingly! At one point Rand even wears a light-colored suit with a satin bow tie!

This was obviously a very early JAK, and it showed in the writing style, especially in the dialogue tags (there were practically no "he said"s. It was all "he rasped", "he grated", "he intoned". It was almost funny). It was also pretty obvious in the sheer amount of exclamation marks used!! She's certainly polished her writing since then, believe me. Anyway, though all this made me smile, it didn't really bother me much :-)

The book also showed its age in that we didn't get the hero's POV. This didn't bother me much either, because Rand was such an easygoing, good-humoured, nice hero. I didn't really need to see his POV to forgive him stuff, like it sometimes happens with very alpha heros. With Rand, he behaved so well there was nothing to forgive.

Rand and Kalinda (I hated that name!) had a lovely relationship, though Kalinda sometimes was a bit too much of a damsel in distress. I loved how they mostly worked together and how Rand respected her business abilities and didn't insist in dominating her, but in cooperating.

As hard as it may sound to believe, I've found older series books much more daring than newer ones. Heroines didn't have to be virgins back then, and they could even have real careers.. I like that very much.