Two local authors get us in the mood for Valentine's Day

"Sizzle and Burn"

by Jayne Ann Krentz

G.P. Putnam's Sons, 359 pp., $24.95

"Firefly Lane"

by Kristin Hannah

St. Martin's Press, 479 pp., $23.95

The lives of extraordinary women have always been a rich subject area for novelists, and two Northwest authors have mined that area in very different ways.

Best-selling Seattle author Jayne Ann Krentz, whose series of Arcane Society romantic suspense novels deals with paranormal protagonists, has a zinger of a new book in "Sizzle and Burn." Set in the fictitious Washington state town of Shelbyville, the novel starts off with a spectacular scene: Raine Tallentyre, a psychic young woman who hears whispered voices no one else can hear, leads investigators to a storage locker in her late aunt Vella's house containing a bound, gagged and barely alive young woman.

The scene kick-starts a plot that involves a killer on the loose, but that's only the first of many problems facing Raine and investigator Zack Jones. And while this novel stands on its own, its story also dovetails neatly into Krentz's fictional world of the Arcane Society, with its long history of psychics and paranormals who have operated for centuries under a cloak of secrecy. The prolific Krentz (35 million copies of her books are in print), who pens historical novels under the pseudonym Amanda Quick and futuristic novels as Jayne Castle, has written Arcane Society novels both as Quick (set in historical periods) and as Krentz (the new contemporary "Sizzle and Burn" is the latest of these).

Zack and Raine fall quickly in love — this is a romance novel, after all — as they overcome their initial mistrust and discover each other's psychic gifts. If all this psychic/paranormal stuff is starting to sound too high on the woo-woo scale, be assured that once you've learned about the protagonists' special powers, the rest of the story is straight-on romantic suspense — laced with a wry wit that sparks up the dialogue as each of the lovers helps the other come to terms with the past.

Zack, for instance, is still burdened by the memory of his late wife, who tried to poison him. "Guess there's no pleasing some men," quips Raine, to which Zack answers, "Call me picky."

The complex plot unveils an array of villains, leading to a finale that is likely to surprise many readers. Krentz's trademarks — fast plotting, snappy dialogue, hot sex — are all on display here, in a novel that ranks with her best.

Bainbridge Island author Kristin Hannah specializes in novels about the powerful bonds linking friends and lovers, and her new "Firefly Lane" is a satisfying tale of two women who bond for life as youngsters growing up in Snohomish. The book is not only set in the Pacific Northwest, it is positively rooted here, with local schools, eateries, clubs and scenery permeating every chapter.

This terrific buddy saga about two best girlfriends who survive all sorts of escapades and catastrophes will inevitably provoke comparisons with Iris Dart's "Beaches," but the story is all Hannah's own. Katie and Tully are so different — Kate choosing family life over career advancement, and Tully propelled by endless ambition — but they have the power to buoy each other up and to hurt each other as no one else could.

From the moment "the coolest girl in the world" moves in next to Kate and her warmhearted family, the two girls click as best friends — though it takes Kate a while to discover that Tully's bravura air hides the deep, lifelong wound of her abandonment by her drug-and-alcohol-addled mother.

Tully and Katie make very different life choices, and they're pulled apart and pushed back together by a terrible betrayal and then by an even greater challenge. The last chapters of your book are likely to be marked with your tear stains, but you have to smile at the final images from the girls' youth: Virginia Slims, teen heartthrob David Cassidy and ABBA's "Dancing Queen."

Melinda Bargreen is The Seattle Times classical music reviewer.