Dark Light by Jayne Castle (aka Jayne Ann Krentz)
Book 5 in the Harmony books
Years ago a mysterious curtain opened in space and a new planet was discovered. The people of Earth named this new planet Harmony and began to travel there and to colonize it. The atmosphere and conditions were very much like Earth. Then, without warning, the curtain closed again and the colonist on Harmony were stranded. Now, two hundred years later, they exhibit unusual paranormal abilities which not only allow them to survive, but to thrive.
Sierra McIntyre is a reporter for a tabloid newspaper, the Curtain, even though she has no experience in journalism. But, of course, she is writing investigative, hard hitting stories, not like the other stories which appear in the Curtain, and she wants some serious questions answered by the new Crystal Guild boss, John Fontana. Fontanta is the new Guild boss, the man in charge of all the "ghost hunters" who have the paranormal power to control ghost energy found in the catacombs below the city. So Fontana immediately sees the advantage of joining forces with this reporter (who has been a true nuisance for him since he took over as Guild boss) so he proposes that they enter into a Marriage of Convenience in order to investigate these problems together. So after being in the same room with each other for about one hour Fontana asks Sierra to enter into a Marriage of Convenience (not a permanent Covenant Marriage) with him and she agrees! Even though her family views the Marriage of Convenience as little more than a legalized affair, she still just says, OK, sure, why not!
We find out that Sierra moved to Crystal City to get away from her family of overachievers. She considers herself an underachiever so she wants to start over someplace where she will not be compared to her other family members. Of course her being ruthless about getting stories about the Guild wouldn't be considered being an overachiever would it? ha ha.. Fontana is an actual bastard as his father never entered any kind of formal relationship (CM or CM) with his mother. This plays a very minor role in the story has his father's family has to come to him to save the family company. Fontana also can produce Dark Light which is invisible and stronger than any normal light produced on Harmony. Then we learn more about this ultra-violet light that is alien technology, blah, blah, blah.
In this series of stories each heroine has a dust bunny, which in my mind was this kind of Trible (like from Star Trek) looking animal. Her dust bunny is named Elvis and for some reason very prominent in this story. Of course it plays into a rescue scene later in the book but I'm not sure why Elvis had to be so played up. He even wears sunglasses and a cape. Oh, well, comic relief I guess. I'm thinking Krentz maybe had so many people asking her questions about the dust bunnies that she decided to give this one more personality.
Now this was not one of the strongests books by Krentz but it was interesting to see more of Harmony. I think a big part of the problem is that there were several plots going on and none were very strong so I think it conflicted and made it hard to really care for any of the characters. Now I'll keep reading more of Krentz/Castle/Quick's books but probably only check out from the library instead of buying it.