Velvet Touch

by Stephanie James, Jayne Ann Krentz

SWEET SURRENDER... Tawny, elegant Lacey Seldon was determined to cut loose from her librarian past and find liberation in the Northwest. An island paradise in Puget Sound seemed the perfect place to begin...until she met Holt Randolph. Holt was unlike any man she'd ever met. His touch made her hunger for a release she'd never known. But he said he didn't want half a heart and challenged her to gamble it all in a blazing affair that would bring her to her senses--and into his arms.

Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Contemporary Romance, Category Romance

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Jayne Ann Castle was born on 28 March 1948 in Borrego Springs, California. Her mother, Alberta Castle, raised her with her two brothers, Stephen and James. In 1970, she obtained a B.A in History at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and later she obtained a Masters degree in Library Science from San Jose State University, where she met Frank Krentz, an engineer. After her graduation, they married and moved to the Virgin Islands. She worked in the Duke University library system, where she began to write her first romance novels. The marriage moved to Seattle, Washington, where they continue living.

Now, Jayne Ann Castle Krentz with her seven pennames is considered a pillar in the contemporary romance genre. For some years, she only uses three pennames for each of three different periods from time: "Jayne Ann Krentz" (her married name) from the present, "Jayne Castle" (her birth name) from the future and her most famous penname: "Amanda Quick" from the past. She is famous for her work ethic, beginning her writing by 7 am six days a week. Her heroins never are damsels in hardships, they are often heroes. Her novels also contain mystery or paranormal elements.

Enthusiastic of the romantic genre, she has always defended its importance. To help educate the public about the romantic genre she became the editor and a contributor to Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance, a non-fiction essay collection that won the prestigious Susan Koppelman Award for Feminist Studies. She established the Castle Humanities Fund at UCSC's University Library to allow the library to purchase additional books and has given money to 15 Seattle-area elementary schools to enhance their library budgets. She is also a member of the Advisory Board for the Writers Programs at the University of Washington extension program.

Psuedonyms:

Jayne Ann Krentz
Amanda Quick
Jayne Castle
Jayne Bentley
Jayne Taylor
Amanda Glass

Reviews

[*CJ* · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Velvet Touch" is the story of Lacey and Holt.

Our h is a Smalltown midwestern librarian, who leaves all that she has known, a broken engagement and marriage behind to get a new start to her life. She sells all her belongings, and to the chagrin of her family, moves to a distant inn. It is there she meets the owner, the brooding but observant H, who takes instant interest in her.
She wants freedom and no committments, he wants her for his life. As she begins courting OM, the H lays claim on her. But with her independence and his stubbornness, can this unlikely pair find HEA.

Good read with a strong h and posessive H. It's not the best SJ out there, but still a sweet read with likable MCs.

Safe/SWME
3/5

[Azet · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Velvet Touch" is the 6:th book i have read by Jayne Ann Krentz aka Stephanie James, and it`s so wonderfully romantic with the exotic beauty of the green island in West Coast where our head-strong and lovely heroine Lacey Seldon seeks adventure and finds exactly that in the charming and wild owner of a hero Holt Randolph.!

Many things amazed me with this romance, first of all Lacey wanted no commitment, just a summer fling. While our Alpha Male of a hero wants everything from her...body heart and soul. I was very glad for our heroine to say the "I love you" first because Holt had his heart on his sleeve since the very first time they met. He was Oh so utterly manly, sexy, smart and brave that i just want him for myself. A very besotted hero who wooed her from the start! So Romantic that i just GAAAHHH! I LOVE this authors Alpha-Heroes, they tend to have a vulnerability that i find so attractive-like their heroines do,hihi!

Perfect Romantic of a Love-story with hero and heroine to die for in my mind, i find "Velvet Touch" a Unforgettable Keeper that i will 100% re-read in the future! This book should NOT be missed...!

[reeder (reviews) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up because I'm older now.

The 29-year-old heroine quits her job, sells her house, packs up the few belongings she didn't sell off and drives from Iowa to Washington state to spend the summer at an inn on the San Juan Islands while she job hunts (by mail) up and down the west coast. She's leaving behind a two-year-old divorce from a man who had married her to have someone pay his way through medical school, a near engagement to a widowed (or divorced) psychology professor who thought she would be the perfect stepmother for his two kids until she told him they needed a good spanking (the book lost half a star for the heroine being on the wrong side of that argument), and a loving family whose conservative dictates have stifled her. She wants passion and freedom.

The hero, who owns the inn where she's staying, is instantly smitten by her nascent excitement and confidence...so he immediately tries to smother it by warning her off from a womanizing fellow guest (the OM is harmless) and mansplaining that the free-spirited life she's trying to craft for herself is not all it's cracked up to be. Trust him, he's been there in his earlier career starting up new hotels all over the world for an international hotel firm. There's no place like home (by which he means the San Juans, not Iowa).

Like Stormy Challenge, their courtship is one long game of sexual chicken, where just when it looks like they're going to do the deed, one or the other withdraws. Her reasons for pulling back: she's looking for a passionate affair, not a one-night stand, and she doesn't see how she can start a relationship with someone who disapproves of her planned lifestyle. His reasons: he doesn't want a relationship with a predetermined end date and feels like she would be too easily lured away by a shiny opportunity.

When they do eventually end up having sex, the hero thinks their blazing passion has changed the heroine's mind about commitment (all of JAK's heroes think sex is a solution), so he's furious when she mentions "the rest of the summer" during their post-coital pillow talk and he ruthlessly kicks her out of bed. (I think JAK undersells this scene, so I imported the shamed feelings of the heroine from Motorcycle Man when that book's hero kicks her out of bed in the prologue.)

The next morning, she decides to take a ferry ride around the San Juans while she gets her head together, and he follows. He's asking for a second chance, but also takes the opportunity to give her his backstory from his glamorous traveling days. (There's nothing dark there; he just decided he preferred running the inn he had inherited from his grandfather.)

That night, his ex-fiancée shows up at the inn. As an OW, she's been hanging over the book since the beginning, since everyone on the island knew she had reservations for later in the summer. She's suitably sophisticated, clingy, and bitchy, but also a fizzle, because the hero is clearly not interested.

When the heroine's ex-husband calls (he's about to get divorced again and wants the heroine back), she's fiendishly delighted the hero lies to the loser and claims they're engaged. In return, she offers to let the hero tell the same lie to his ex-fiancée if that will help drive her away. I like the symmetry: they both have the opportunity to renew a relationship with a partner who dumped them, but neither one is remotely tempted.

The hero then offers the heroine an affair on her terms, but now that he's no longer insisting on commitment, she's thrown into a tizzy because she realizes she loves him. With exercise and meditation (no, seriously), she finds peace of mind, confesses her love, proposes, and HEA. (I was irate when the heroine in Stormy Challenge had to do the proposing, but here it makes sense, since this heroine had insisted from the beginning she wasn't interested in another marriage.)

When I read this as a teen, I wasn't impressed. At the time, I was reading HPs and regencies where heroines bagged their millionaire husbands and HEAs at 19, so this heroine's early midlife crisis read like loserville to me. She was old (*eyeroll*) and had wasted a decade of her life. Now that I'm old enough to be her mother, I am charmed by her energy and confidence and pragmatic daring. I completely understand why the hero fell for her at first sight.

My problem with the book is I'm not entirely certain why she fell for him in return. While he is one of Krentz's nicer heroes whose early arrogance is tempered by the vulnerability he shows in the final chapter, he's also the west coast version of the small town midwestern life she was trying to escape. In the end, it comes down to sex: she was looking for passion and found it with him instead of the OM. Journey ended.

JAK checklist
Pacific Northwest setting: The San Juan Islands off the Washington coast.
Familiar professions: She just quit her job as a librarian (very common profession for JAK heroines, since JAK was one herself) and ends the book planning to start a boutique on the island (typical JAK entrepreneurship). He's an innkeeper with a former career at an international hotel firm. We'll see the heroine of The Silver Snare living his glamorous past life, and several future heroes and heroines running quaint inns (Cautious Lover, The Private Eye, Grand Passion, etc.).
What's in a name?: She's Lacey...to go with the "velvet" of the title?
Marital status: She is divorced and fresh off a broken near-engagement. He has never married but has an ex-fiancée who dumped him to marry another man because she wanted the glamour of his hotel career rather than being a small town innkeeper's wife.
Age: She's 29; he's 37-38.
Heroine's eye exam: Blue and green
Hero's eye exam: Silvery hazel
Hair color: Hers is auburn; his is tawny brown, worn a bit longer than those staid men she left back in Iowa. 
Pets: None. 
Vehicles spell success: He drives a silver Alfa Romeo and owns a cabin cruiser for the waterways. She bought a sporty Fiat for her trip from Iowa to Washington.
Metaphors are for flogging: I assume the "velvet touch" in the title is the hero's method of handling the heroine, but it's barely referenced in the text. She is compared occasionally to a butterfly spreading its wings.
Hero threatens to spank heroine: Nope! (Told you he was nice.) The heroine proposed spanking her almost-fiancé's bratty kids, though.
The Family Man Forecast: Like this heroine, the heroine of Family Man thinks she's ready to launch an adventurous life but finds herself tied to the first man who stirs her passion.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the main flaw of this book is that it's too short. It was only 177 pages in the copy I got a hold of and everything about Lacey and Holt's relationship felt rushed and schizophrenic. At different times, both characters completely changed their stance on the relationship without anything really prompting that change. It made the romance seem more like one between a couple of overly dramatic high schoolers than an adult couple. The other thing that would have helped this story was if we'd gotten to read Holt's perspective throughout the story. We get a very, very brief glimpse of it at the beginning but the whole rest of the book is through Lacey's eyes. It made Holt's actions seem unfounded and overbearing, whereas if we'd gotten to read about his internal emotional struggle then they would presumably have seemed more justified.



To begin the story we've got Lacey, a small town girl from the Midwest who has decided to adopt a "seize the day" kind of lifestyle. She quits her job, sells her house and all her stuff, buys a fun little car and a new sexy wardrobe and then heads off to find adventure on the west coast. She envisions herself traveling to exotic locales, dabbling in some torrid affairs, and accepting exciting jobs. I liked Lacey in the beginning of the book. Her quest to experience life to the fullest sounded fun and I liked that she'd been strong enough to make such a radical change in her life and stand against her interfering family's protests.

And I continued liking Lacey until about halfway through the book when our fun, lively heroine who knew her own mind got traded in for a confused, whiny little girl who didn't know what she wanted out of life. Lacey's first stop on her grand life tour happened to be at an island inn owned by Holt. She planned to spend the summer there while she selected a new job. Holt didn't bowl me over as the hero. The moment he meets Lacey he starts trying to dictate her life and presumes to lecture her on what she really needs. It was exactly the same attitude she'd left her home town to get away from. He then flits schizophrenically between trying to get her into bed and trying to dump her.

Her first day on the island he invites her to take a ride on his boat. Once there he kisses her and that leads to more. They're on the bed in the boat's cabin and almost having sex when Lacey realizes that they just met and should probably get to know each other a little better first. Holt is PISSED that she stopped and even says "you can't go this far and then call a halt!" like an outraged teenage boy trying to get past second base for the first time. Somehow Lacey ends up apologizing for the whole scene. They go out to dinner a few nights later and when they get home, Holt again initiates a steamy encounter. This time Lacey is ready to go all the way and he kisses and caresses her, urging her to tell him how much she wants him and when she does he says, "okay, that's all I wanted to hear. I'm out of here." He'd deliberately worked Lacey up just so that he could walk away and teach her a lesson.

You see, despite his extremely strong effort to sleep with her on the boat, he's decided that he doesn't want to be Lacey's "summer affair" before she moves on to the next adventure in her life. He wants her to commit to staying on the island and having a real relationship with him. And he feels pretty sure this is the right thing for her because he knows her better than she knows herself. He's already lived the free-spirited, jet-setting lifestyle and is certain she will eventually come to the same conclusion he did, which was that it was an empty unfulfilling way to live. He "knows" this after only just meeting her. But silly little Lacey THINKS she still wants to pursue her dream of adventure, so he decided to implement this little seduction plan of making her desire him and then holding the "prize" out of reach in order to make her come around. It was a very cold, calculating and manipulative (not to mention egotistical) thing to do and it didn't do much to make me like Holt.

Lacey's pretty pissed about it too so when her friendly and handsome neighbor, Todd, shows up to ask if she wants to go for a nighttime swim, she decides to seize the moment of whimsy and go with him. Todd's shown an interest in her and has been in full support of her new dream lifestyle. He's fun and accepts her on her terms, basically he's the opposite of Holt. He ends up kissing her during their swim and she lets him because she's pissed at Holt's manipulation and she figures this is part of her new free-spirited lifestyle. She'd wanted to do a little experimentation with men, right? Naturally Holt finds them at just that moment and he's furious. He chases off Todd and manhandles Lacey into his house on the island. The whole trip there he's angrily telling her that they are GOING to have sex right now whether she likes it or not. That despite his declarations that he didn't want to just be her summer romance, or worse, a one-night stand, he's changed his mind. If she's determined to have sexual affairs in her new life then by God it's going to be with him not Todd.

Lacey's afraid of Holt and his fury but she quickly becomes a willing participant in the bedroom action. Naturally it's an earth-shatteringly fantastic experience for both of them and everything is swell for about 5 seconds. And then Lacey says something about how they've got the whole summer to enjoy this fabulous sex and Holt loses his mind. He jumps out of bed and accuses Lacey of using him, even though he's the one who dragged her there for sex and who said he was declaring himself her summer affair partner because no other man was allowed to have her. Somehow he still feels like the injured party. He says that he's not going to let her toy with him all summer, that it's better for him to be a one-night stand after all and that he's done with her. Then he kicks Lacey out of his bed and his house leaving her confused and pissed.

Lacey contemplates leaving the island and spending the summer somewhere else but decides to get away for just the day so she can clear her head before making any decisions. She hops a ferry only to find that Holt has followed her onto the boat. Despite his over-the-top anger the night before, he's now reconsidered his position and wants to make sure she stays on the island so they can continue to pursue the relationship. She's reluctant at first but they spend the day together and she's won over by the end of the trip. But when they get back, Holt's gorgeous ex-fiancee has shown up to try to win him back.

I'm not a big fan of romance authors using jealousy to force the heroine to go after the hero. It usually makes the heroine do something embarrassing or stupid or both and jealousy isn't a good foundation for a long-term relationship. Plus the hero loses points in my book for using the other woman as a manipulation tactic. A really romantic hero wouldn't give another woman the time of day because he's so honorably in love with our heroine. But unfortunately we were forced to play out the jealousy angle in this book. Even though just eight hours ago Lacey was considering leaving the island, and Holt, for good, she's insanely jealous of his ex-fiancee. Later that night, when Holt comes to her cabin, he asks Lacey to pretend to be his current fiancee so that he can get the ex to back off. He plays it up like he's worried that she'll somehow wear him down and he'll end up back in a relationship with her. This for some unfathomable reason sparks a "protective" instinct in Lacey. She wants to protect this poor man who is powerless to resist the pursuit of a hot woman from having his heart broken a second time. Seriously? What a crock. If she really believes that he's incapable of just saying "no" to his ex, then how can she EVER trust him to be faithful to her in any relationship they might have? There are only two kinds of men, those who choose to remain faithful and those who don't. And if he's the type that "can't" say no to another woman's advances then their relationship is doomed.

Lacey agrees to "protect" poor, fragile, powerless Holt from his man-hungry ex and he's effusive with his thanks. They head back to his house and Holt goes on and on about how they might as well take their fake engagement all the way by having sex, just like a real couple would. Lacey, conscious of his "tender" heart and his repeated declarations that he didn't want to be just a summer romance, hesitates to agree. She asks if this is what he really wants and he talks about how she's brought him to his knees and he'll "surrender" to keeping the relationship on her terms. That they just won't think about the future anymore.

They have the transcendental sex again and suddenly Lacey comes to the realization that she's in love with Holt and wants to marry him. All her plans for an adventurous lifestyle are completely abandoned, all she wants is him. But the next morning Holt is happily saying that this summer romance thing is awesome and they won't talk about commitments anymore, just like she wanted. She spends a day in turmoil, blaming herself for the current state of affairs because she'd been the one to "stupidly" insist on following her dream and keeping her relationship with Holt to a summer fling. Finally she does some meditating and decides to tell Holt she loves him. His response is "I know you do," and he happily explains that he knew the first time they slept together that she was in love with him, but had been patiently waiting for her to figure it out...with some helpful manipulation from him.

They have a nice chat and the whole sordid story comes out. Holt had actually been coldly manipulating every single encounter they had from almost the very beginning in order to get her to "realize" that she belonged with him. He'd deliberately paraded his ex around in front of her to spark jealousy, then pretended to be a powerless wounded puppy so she'd feel compelled to "protect" him. He'd also deliberately pretended to be on board with her "summer-only" plan in order to force her to reconsider whether that's what she really wanted. And he'd also decided, in a very calculated way, that last night was a good time for them to sleep together again because he was sure that another round in HIS bed would clear away any lasting doubts about how she felt because he's just that darn good. Wow.

All it all it was a disappointing romance. Holt went from trying to get Lacey in bed after only knowing her for a day, to using seduction to make a point, to forcing her into his bed against her protests, to accusing her of using him in a very short space of time. It made it feel like he didn't know what he wanted. Then he started coldly manipulating all their time together to force Lacey to what he considered to be the "right" conclusion about how to spend the rest of her life. Lacey, on the other hand, was nothing but up front with Holt throughout the whole relationship. She told him straight out what she wanted out of life and that she wasn't willing to make a commitment to him because of her future plans. But drops all that in the end because deep down what every woman wants is marriage to a manipulative man who thinks he knows what's best for her. Yay.

I didn't like that Lacey never got to experience the lifestyle she'd wanted. She basically traded one kind of oppression for another. In her hometown everyone tried to dictate her life and at the end Holt is doing the same thing. I would have preferred for the story to have started out some period of time after her big life-change so that she would have gotten to experience some of the life she'd spent years longing for. Even just a year sowing her wild oats would have made it more tolerable for her to abandon all her dreams in order to be with Holt. As it stands now, I have to imagine that at some point in their marriage, Lacey will again start to wonder if she hasn't missed out on something important by never pursuing her dream.


All in all, the story felt rushed and the relationship was unfounded and unsatisfying.

[Farah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked it at the beginning .. the plot seemed simple and interesting enough , the scenery was nice .. I also thought the heroine and hero were intriguing characters but then Lacy turned out to be really obnoxious and extremely childish .. and Holt had no pride whatsoever and was too pushy. I couldn't get past the annoying characters.

[Kit731 · Rating 3 out of 5]

No jakože... dalo se, ale nic skvělého...

[R · Rating 2 out of 5]

MINOR SPOILERS
This book is an early work by the author. I bought it because I enjoy the later books written as Jayne Ann Krentz and under other pseudonyms. I do not recommend this book at all and found it hard to read. I read it decades after it was published, and the main character came across as chauvinistic and many of the ideas are dated.
The book is a standalone.
Lacey leaves her life in Iowa to embark on a new life. She wants change and her first stop is on one of the San Juan islands in Washington. She meets Holt and, from the get go, he thinks he knows better than she does what she should be doing. This is an example of what he says “You must let me be the judge of what’s necessary and what isn’t” (about her life) or, in response to Lacey saying he would not want to get involved with a free spirit, “Not unless I found a way to curb the free spirit.” Often what he says is described as cold, harsh, or some other very negative adjective about his tone. Most people would not want to be spoken to that way.
He treats her poorly and she should have run screaming away from him. He asks her forgiveness at a couple of points or gives a rationale for his behavior so at least he acknowledges that he sometimes goes over the line. The night after he meets her and pronounces an initial judgment, he invites her on his boat, and she accepts because she is attracted to him. In my opinion, she should not have gone because he was unpleasant. During the trip, he begins kissing her and when she asks him to stop, he says “no.” Eventually he does when she continues to say no, but not until she actually fears that he is going to rape her. After he stops, she apologizes to him and says she should not have led him on. He says he is the one who should apologize, and he is right – he kept pushing even after she said no.
Holt brags about having done what she wants to do and having had affairs but does not think it is right for her. Most people would have to experience this for themselves and will not believe it if you simply tell them what you believe to be true about their lives and what they should do next.
The book is overly dramatic both in events and dialogue. The book takes place over a few days, which seemed rushed, and allowed for no relationship development.
Later in the book, Holt becomes a little nicer, but it feels like it is partly because he is getting his way. When Lacey tells him that she loves him, he says “I know.” That is not every woman’s dream answer. He goes on to explain how he knew but it felt like he was a bit more omniscient about what she was feeling and thinking than she was about him. It did not feel like they were equal partners.
The book uses stereotypes about life in Iowa which I did not care for. For example, Lacey mediates. When Holt asks her about it, she says she would have been put in a padded cell in Iowa for doing it.
Spoiler…at the end, Lacey decides that what she was really looking for was the relationship with Holt. She also decides on what she will do for a living which will be different from what she was doing in Iowa so that will be a change of pace. While both of those things are possible, it would have been good for her to experience a bit more of her dream. It also would have been good for this change of mind to be part of her inner monologue earlier and not just a sudden realization at the end.
I do not recommend this book.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expect a lot more from Jayne Ann Krentz than what I read in Velvet Touch. The H and the h are interesting characters to say the least but I didn't like how the H subjugates the h's quest of exploring the world and finding herself. If he had compromised a bit and had agreed to go with her on the journey it would have been a true HEA for the woman. Instead the H had all the fun with his world exploration and settled and was looking for a woman to have a family with. Found one but she ran off to see the world and promptly enters h who wants to see the world but has to now give up her dreams to be with him.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

h was incredibly naive thinking that she only wanted a series of wild passionate affairs because she wanted to break out of the mold that small town/small minded people forced her into, not to mention the disaster of her two previously failed relationships. It was entaining af to see the tables turned and have the H get mad for not wanting to be used for his body only.

[Malvina · Rating 3 out of 5]

One that doesn't really stand the test of time from 1982, but Lacey and Holt get their HEA in the end.

[Joy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Part of a pair reissued under the name WILDEST DREAMS. Lacey moved from Iowa to Oregon, to get away from the community that thinks it has the right to run her life. She immediately meets Holt Randolph, who dominates her and also assumes the right to run her life. Because of the chemistry between them, Lacey gives in to him.

How much we will tolerate in a leading man has changed a lot in 30 years. I'm not likely to read the other book of the pair.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1982, this book shows promise, but once again mainly deals with a single relationship and not much else. Lacey Selden is trying to add excitement to her placid life while Holt Randolph is trying to calm down his fast-paced life. Its interest for me is mainly in its being early Jayne Ann Krentz.

[Jadzia · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was weak... That's almost all I can say about this book. It couldn't keep my attention and I didn't like neither the hero nor the heroine. Ad he was sooo condescending and of course knew better what she feels and what does she look for. I dont' think I will reread this one ever.

[Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Her characters are always different than expected. I enjoyed all of her 80's books and took them for the era they were in and what was selling. I do wish they were all in Kindle Format!

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic! I think this quote from the book illustrates it all. "Down, down they came on the other side of the magic doorway, clinging to each other as if to the only reality in their universe." Does it get any better than this?!!!!

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Jayne Ann Krentz at the beginning. It is a simple story and fun and quick to read. It is not as developed as her later books, but still has her wonderful dialogue and writing skills as always.
Second Reading - Still enjoyed.

[Griffinyarn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of boring... Definitely not one of Stephanie James' (aka Jayne Ann Krentz) best works.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the worst thing I've read, but kind of boring. Also fairly dated, which makes sense because it was written in the 80s. The author's later work is more fun for me.