Readers enjoyed the small science fiction references in the story, inspiring Krentz to incorporate those elements into a romance plot.
But beginning in the early 1980s, time travel themes began to appear in some romances, but the novels focused primarily on the difficulties of assimilation as a conflict between the hero and heroine.
Krentz's follow-up to The Devil to Pay, Sweet Starfire, was the first romance novel to fully embrace science fiction precepts.
The shrine to hold the secret to perfect mental communion, which is highly desired among the sect to which Cidra belongs.
Cidra discovers that she is not a true member of the sect - rather than seeking mental communion at all costs, she is a fighter, wanting a good life for herself.
While on a journey, the heroine meets a man who is the opposite of everything she thought she wanted and by the end of the novel they have fallen in love.
[3] The race the protagonists seek are revealed to be extinct because they essentially gave up on the messiness of life in favor of the ideal of mental harmony.
Reviewer Tara Gelsomino praised the depth of the emotional relationship that Krentz created between the protagonists and the sexual tension that simmered between them.