Absolutely, Positively

• Author: Jayne Ann Krentz
• Publisher: Pocket
• Year: 1997
• Setting: Seattle
• Amazon Listing - Absolutely, Positively

After the death of her inventor father, Molly Abberwick finds herself the owner of the successful tea and spice shop (Abberwick Tea & Spice) shop that she started working for after the death of her mother and the unexpected trustee of the Abberwick Foundation, a non-profit founded to endow promising inventors with seed money. Molly hires Dr. Harry Stratton Trevelyan, a noted expert on fraud in science, to help her weed out the scams from the legitimate proposals that cross her desk.

Harry knows that Molly is frustrated by his inability to approve any of the proposals he's reviewed -- no matter how nice the drawings, moon power will never equal solar power -- but he's got other worries. In addition to starting an affair with Molly, he has to deal with the two warring branches of his family: the rich, snobbish Strattons and the rough-and-tumble, carnival-owning Trevelyans. And when someone starts threatening Molly, he adds saving her from terrifying violence to his already crowded list.

This is Jayne Ann Krentz at her best. Harry, an academic, is wracked with guilt over the deaths of his parents, so much so that his biggest fear is being too late to save Molly. He's also torn in two by his family. They all want him to help, but nobody will accept that he's equally part of each clan.

Molly is far better grounded than Harry, though she's also layered. Her admission that she sought therapy after the death of her parents is a nice touch, something that all-powerful romance heroines rarely concede.