Light in Shadow

Light in Shadow is a novel of romantic suspense by the American writer Jayne Ann Krentz, published in 2003. Its heroine has built a business and a new name for herself in a small Arizona town, and the tension comes from the parts of her past she has left out of the story she tells about herself.

Zoe Luce is a successful interior designer in Whispering Springs with an unusual speciality: she redesigns the homes of newly divorced clients so that they can put the past behind them. She knows from her own life that some things cannot be covered with a coat of paint, and she keeps quiet about a gift she has, an ability to sense the history that clings to the walls of a house.

When she becomes convinced that one of her clients is hiding a dark secret, Zoe goes to Ethan Truax, a private investigator, to find out the truth. The case nearly kills them both, and his skill at detection begins to work against her: Ethan wants to know who she was before she arrived in town, and the woman he is uncovering is not the one she has been presenting.