Customer Reviews

Black Ice

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

"Black Ice" is a wonderful *treat* of a book for readers who love Anne Stuart and her "bad boy" heroes. It is a page-turner that I could barely put down with a dark, compelling hero and sympathetic heroine.

Chloe Underwood is an American in Paris, living in a tiny apartment and making a living by translating children's books into French. One day, while translating a book about a ferret in a tutu, she ironically observes that she does not have enough sex and violence in her life....and (boy, oh, boy!) she *should* have been careful what she wished for! Almost immediately, she is convinced by her flighty roommate to take her place as translator for a group of businessmen at a weekend conference outside of Paris. Chloe needs the money, and she will get to wear her roommate's chic clothes, so she agrees.

Arriving at the remote chateau for the conference, Chloe is introduced to the participants, including the dangerously attractive and seductive Bastien Toussaint. Unfortunately for Chloe, she is much sharper and more observant than her roommate, and it does not take her very long to figure out that the "entrepreneurs" are really illegal arms dealers. A little bit of unwise snooping around, and Chloe has gotten herself into some *serious* trouble and finds herself on the run with Bastien from people who want her dead.

Chloe is an engaging heroine--young, confused by Bastien's attentions (and particularly by her own reactions to him), disastrously inquisitive, brave and fairly resourceful. She does some really stupid things, but she is a likable and believable heroine. Bastien is one of Anne Stuart's deliciously dangerous bad boy heroes. A cross between the hero of her own book "Moonrise" and Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne, Bastien is a marvelously complex hero--a sexy chameleon and efficient killer who has come to detest the type of work that he does and realize that there is not much difference between the sides working for good and evil in this type of conflict.

The plot is face-paced and exciting and the sexual tension is excellently done. The attraction between Chloe and Bastien is very believable and the sex scenes are smokin' hot. My only complaint with the book was that it seemed to end rather abruptly (I actually turned the page looking for the next chapter, but that was it!)

In summary, this is an excellent romantic thriller with lots of action and a complex, attractive but morally ambiguous hero. Fans of Anne Stuart will be delighted by "Black Ice". I know that I enjoyed every minute of it!
Highly recommended!

Chloe Underwood comes from a family of doctors. Mother, father, siblings. They wish to pressure her into going to medical school, but at twenty-three, Chloe knows this is not the life for her - especially since she faints at the sight of blood. This is a theme common to Stuart's writings, apparent if you are a long time fan - which I happen to be. That feeling out of sync with one's family heroine is generally at the core of all Stuart's females. They drum to their own drumbeat, which makes the perfect target for the perfect Stuart badder-than-bad-boy, Gamma rogue, anti-hero hero. A pure case of opposites attracts to the power of ten.

In this Stuart tale, Chloe is an American in Paris. She is living on her shoestring salary of translating children's books, refusing to ask for money from her parents to get by. The parents refuse to accept one of their blood cannot be a doctor so they are keep the purse string tight hoping to bring Chloe to heel. Chloe's roommate wants to dash off with her latest boyfriend for the weekend. Only problem, she has accept a job to be translator for a group of businessmen for the weekend. She hits on the idea of sending Chloe in her place.

We quickly learn this was a bad idea. That is the one sticking point of the whole tale. Chloe is spirited to a secluded Chateau, and upon arrival the man hosting it want to send Chloe back. Chloe is getting bad vibes about the whole situation, but instead of accepting him sending her back she convinces him to let her stay. We are told Chloe can use the money and that she is restless looking for something to jazz up her life. Still, those reasons seem just a tad week when she is having misgivings about this set up.

These feelings of qualms continue to increase as she is introduced to the rest of the group, and they break into Italian. Supposedly Chloe speaks only English and French, but actually she speaks nearly a dozen languages. She thinks she covers well, listening to them discuss her and wanting her sent back to town. Okies. I would be out of there! But since this is the Resident Genius of Dark Romantic Suspense, I let Stuart run with the tale.

Chloe is immediately attracted to the sexy bad boy in the group. Bastien Toussaint is pure Stuart Gamma Rogue to the teeth. Sexy, dangerous as sticking your fingers in a fan, and just a bit weary of life in general. He's been so deep undercover for a mysterious group called The Committee, and figures he will have to kill or be killed before the weekend is over. Bastien is not thrilled to see Chloe, a lamb thrown in amongst the wolves. And with good reasons. These are illegal arms dealers. Murder and Mayhem is their stock in trade. It didn't take him two minutes to figure out Chloe understood everything being said - in every language. Worse, that talent will cost Chloe her life as one of them is ordered to kill her because they fear she now knows too much.

The next thing Chloe knows, she is off, running for her life with sexy Bastien. It a taught, edgy, sexy tale with Stuart at her best. Black Ice is ice so clear that it's deceptive. You don't see it till it's too late. Stuart's book come sat you're the same way! Echoes of her brilliant work Moonrise.

If you like your tales dark and your heroes darker...then strap on your ice-skates and take on the black ice!

This is my first book by Anne Stuart and I keep wondering what took me so long to discover her! I'm a sucker for bad boys and it seems Ms Stuart is the queen of bad boy anti-heroes. Yes, there is much here that seems unrealistic but if you're willing to suspend belief on some things, there is also a really enjoyable story here.

Chloe is a young, fairly naive translator living in Paris to escape her wealthy family and their expectations back home in North Carolina. When her ditzy, gold digging roommate arranges for Chloe to take her place translating for a business conference, she finds herself in an isolated, fortified chateau wondering what the heck she's gotten herself into. Then she meets a mysterious and very sexy man and just knows that she is in serious danger. And she is.

Bastien Toussaint is a covert agent for a shadowy organization trying to infiltrate an illegal arms dealing cartel. Supposedly he works for the good guys but lately he's been wondering about that. Bastien is not exactly a nice guy and he does whatever it takes to complete his mission. If that means killing someone, so be it. If it takes sleeping with a woman to get info, no problem. When he meets Chloe he wonders if she is truly what she seems or something more dangerous. She's either really good at what she does or pathetically inept! He decides to get close to her to find out and so they have an encounter that shakes them both. He decides she truly is what she appears - an innocent young woman in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Normally he'd leave her to her fate, but there is something about Chloe and he finds himself her self-appointed bodyguard as they go on the run from the cartel. Now if he can just get her back to the States and out of his life they'll both be better off.

Okay, yes at 23 she is a bit young and yes I agree no criminal cartel would let an outsider translate for them. Matter of fact, once she got there they seemed to have little need of her anyway, so that aspect was pretty thin and unbelievable. And she fights Bastien a bit too much given that he's trying to protect her. Also, be aware that there is quite a bit of violence here with a pretty high body count. But my biggest peeve is that it ended too abruptly - I really needed and wanted an epilogue!

I know that I'm being generous with 5 stars but all I can say in my defense is that, when I finished it, I just wanted to read it all over again! Looking forward to reading more from Ms Stuart!

Something was missing for me in this story. I read it quickly, but it left me unmoved. It had elements that I usually like: initial antagonistic relationship, a morally gray character, unwillingly falling in love, etc. Very few of those elements felt like they actually worked in the story though. None of it clicked for me and I was left feeling cynical and disbelieving of the main character's ability to stay together for the long term.

Chloe's character didn't do the story any favors. She blew past naïve and ran straight into too stupid to live territory. She starts getting uncomfortable with the people she's supposed to be translating for but instead of bowing out and going back home she won't leave until she has to because of Bastien. This is after she tells herself that he's married, a womanizer, and that there's no way they could be together because she has personal rules against being with married men. It seemed inconsistent.

When they have sex for the first time, Chloe realizes that he used and degraded her and criticizes herself because she still wants more. I thought we'd get some deeper personal struggle with her fascination with Bastien and her willingness to be used. I was really looking forward to it! It never happened though... She just seemed to get over it and be willing to jump on him if he showed the smallest sign that he might be interested in doing it again. Everything Chloe did seemed to illustrate how idiotic she was. It did not endear her to me. After Hakim tortures her she still doesn't think she's in that much danger! It didn't seem possible that she could be so stupid. I guess I was supposed to attribute it to her age? That's rather hard to accept though. I don't think I've ever met a 23 year old that stupid before. The fact that she had lived on her own for 2 years in a foreign country makes it hard to believe that she hadn't acquired even the barest smidgen of street smarts.

Bastien had the potential to be very interesting. Unfortunately I never got more detail into his characterization. I was eager to see a character who was on the "good guy" side but who had been killing people for so long that he accepted the very real truth that in the end there's no real difference between the good guys and the bad guys. Unfortunately he was just... there. I wanted insight into what made him tick. I didn't really need an unhappy childhood with a crappy mom, but I wanted to see more of his journey down the road he chose. Does he regret what he lost? Would he do everything the same? I just wanted more of what made him who he was. Everything about him seemed to be told, not shown. We're told that Chloe fascinates him; we're told that he loves her. I didn't feel that I was shown any of that.

The whole story felt like it skimmed the surface of everything. I thought that the "bad guys" felt like caricatures. I thought Chloe would have to face some inner realization that in the end there's no real difference between Bastien and the "bad guys". She would just have to decide if it's something she can accept or not. No such thing here though. I was amused by Bastien's refusal to lie to Chloe. When she kept thinking that underneath it all he's just a good guy who doesn't really want to kill a woman and he kept telling her she was an idiot to believe that he'd only kill in self defense I had to laugh. I appreciated his cold honesty but I think that despite his repeated assurances that he could kill anyone Chloe still had a romanticized vision of him. I don't think she ever saw who he really was. That was disappointing.

Despite my problems with this book I still read it quickly. I was hooked on it even as I was deeply unhappy with the story being told. How confusing. I ended up giving it a higher grade than I originally planned because of the story's readability.

"Black Ice" is the first book of Anne Stuart's that I have read, and although I am not a regular reader of romantic suspense, I was more impressed with the book than I thought might be possible. Ms. Stuart created a very memorable anti-hero in the person of Bastien Toussaint, who at least in the first half of the book could be right at home in a Daniel Silva novel. It is obvious from the first that Bastien is the hero, even though he has spent many years as a hired killer and an active participant in casual sexual encounters, some of them of the more kinky variety -- not activities that one normally associates with romance novel heroes. I am not totally sold on his transformation-by-love as related by Ms Stuart, and I think that she tied up the ends a little too swiftly, but I would be interested in reading more books with a similiar character as the principal male figure.

The character of the heroine Chloe was a little more problematic for me -- she was a very naive 23 year old to have been on her own in Paris for the two years prior to the opening of the novel. The fact that she was bored in Paris made me feel that she was rather more shallow than Ms Stuart intended. Her pre-occupation with her looks (or rather what she thought of as her lack of looks) became tiresome toward the end, and at times she almost started to degenerate into the much hated Too Stupid to Live figure of far too much romantic fiction.

Over all, this book is worth your while if you are a fan of either Ms Stuart or romantic suspense fiction. The villains are truly evil, the various settings and locales have a realistic feel, and Ms Stuart makes fresh use of the cliched plot device of claustrophobia (although I have to say that it is not in the league of Navada Barr's exploration of that fear in "Blind Descent").

This is the best of the ice series by Anne Stuart - really well written, with the bad boy persona still within reason and bounds of a good human being making choices that are not always pleasant. Having gone through the other Ice books, I can easily confirm that this one is the best - with the most humane anti -hero and the most likeable if more innocent and soft heroine of the lot. It does go downhill from here, simply because essentially the hero in all the others remain the same but are more degenerate and seem to enjoy doing the awful things they do, unlike Bastien who is conscious and deeply sorrowful about his choices. The plot gets thinner with the other books too, while this one had its large potholes to begin with anyway. And finally the Committee and it's other operatives were slightly more believable in this book. All the other books seem to consist of bumbling idiots who seem to be constantly in crisis mode and wringing their hands. It sounds like I did not enjoy Anne Stuart and I actually do. I just need her to work a little harder on the plots, get someone to play Devil's advocate while she is creating them, make the heroes stay a little more above the xxxshole line:) and keep the angst and passion as is - not much to ask for!

Chloe Underwood left the North Carolina Mountains to live in Paris. She scored work as a translator of children's books at Les Frere Laurent due to her promiscuous roommate Sylvia Whickham. When Sylvia has a chance to spend the weekend with wealthy sixty-seven years old Henry, she coaxes Chloe to replace her in translating English to and from French.

Chloe arrives at Mirabel, which has security tighter than Fort Knox has. At the locale, Mr. Hakim leans towards sending Chloe home and several participants object to her presence speaking in Italian to hide what they say about her from her; the translator understands perfectly what they communicate, but pretends otherwise. When her clients learn that Chloe has found out that they are arms dealers, they must kill her. Her only hope of survival is one of the attendees, Bastien Toussaint, a man with at least a dozen identities. Compromising his undercover mission that he has played at for eleven months, he flees with Chloe, but she wonders if she is safe with him as she knows her heart is not.

Though why Chloe insisted on staying when her employer stated he did not need her seems off, readers will obtain plenty of pleasure from this taut romantic suspense thriller. The story line moves quickly once Chloe chooses to hide her ability to speak and comprehend Italian and never slows down until the climatic battle between Mr. Hakim's thugs and the heroine and her antiheroic champion. BLACK ICE is a tremendous thriller that showcases the skills of an author worth reading.

Harriet Klausner

Total fantasy. If you're looking for a real suspense or espionage novel, this isn't it. But, if what you want is classic bad-guy-falls-for-innocent love story with heart-thumping romance on a darker level, this is definitely your book. I read it in 2 days. Its not believable, but that's the whole point of escapism, isn't it?

I am always a little cautious whenever I begin a new author, but WOW! I could not believe that I barely discovered Anne Stuart. The book begins with Chloe Underwoods side of the book, her history and job description and suddenly, she is given a great opportunity to translate for some people while they are at a business conference meeting. There, she meets the mysterious and sexy Bastian Toussaint who is more than willing to bring her to his bed. She begins to read between the lines during the discussions and then Hakin, her boss and a ruthless and cruel killer, decides he does not want her to live. by this time, Bastian has seduced her enough and the story unfolds from there. Once i finished the book I had to go back to re-read the very sizzling scenes Start writes. WOW!!! I am looking forward to reading her work again. Great plot, lots of action, passion, lust, murder and even love is thrown in the mix. Great book.

Anne Stuart breaks the rules and does it well. While she has been criticized for creating unrealistic scenarios, I think her characterizations hit the mark particularly when they concern heroes like Bastien Toussaint. He's close to the real thing even though that might be hard to take for readers accustomed to more "romantic" protagonists. As for Chloe, once again I think Ms. Stuart gets it right in her depiction of an average young woman thrown into shocking circumstances outside her control. "Black Ice" may stretch the genre but I think that's a good thing.