HE FIGURES ONE AND ONE EQUAL TWO. SHE KNOWS HE'S WRONG...IF BABY MAKES THREE.Jonas Quarral was lean, sexy, and equally capable of quoting Renaissance poetry or wielding a dagger. Verity Ames knew Jonas was the perfect partner for an affair--and that he was not the marrying kind. Before long he would be looking for new excitement, leaving Verity behind to run her gourmet restaurant in a California resort, hold on to misty colored memories, and wonder what she was going to do if she were pregnant with his child. Sure enough, her adventuring lover was soon off to an Italian villa rebuilt on a Pacific Northwest island. Jonas went to hunt for missing Renaissance jewels. Verity went along to snare a husband. A big, soft, four-poster bed might be the ideal place to try out her lures! But in this ancient mansion of hidden passageways and mysterious perils, there were some deadly traps for those blinded by love...unless Verity could help Jonas discover the most precious treasure a woman and man can find.
In this sequel to Gift of Gold, Verity is trying to manage Jonas's career and takes a commission on his behalf to authenticate a transplanted Italian renaissance villa on an island in the Puget Sound. She is also wrestling with how to tell Jonas that he's going to become a father -she thinks he might be getting tired of washing dishes in her restaurant and is ready to take off to parts unknown.At the Italian villa, there is a host of weird and suspicious characters as well as a long-lost treasure that Jonas is also tasked with locating. Murder and mayhem ensues with secret tunnels and pyschic clues abound.I quite like narrator Wendy Petersen's interpretation of the various characters in the book and I believe she did a much better job than Mary Peiffer who read the first book. However, I think she could slow down her speech just a tad.Overall, another enjoyable listen.
Audiobook: I enjoyed this book. I was a bit confused as to what the mystery would be - that took a while to start. And the ending wrap-up is probably the longest that I have read by JAK. But it was all still a great way to pass 8 or so hours.One comment - the narrator drops the ends off words when 'not' is conjoined to the word eg didn't - the narrator reads it as di'n't... I think this a accent variation within the US...I'd like to read Gift of Gold to see where it started, but I can't find a copy to buy over here :(
—Jane (PS)
