Customer Reviews

Cold As Ice

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Genevieve Spencer was on her way to Costa Rica for a much needed vacation when her law firm sends her to get legal papers signed by their very wealthy client, Harry Van Dorn. Knowing she can't refuse, Genevieve reluctantly agrees to be taken out to the client's yacht, hoping that she can leave within a few hours.

Peter Jensen is on a mission to bring down Harry Van Dorn before he can bring chaos to the world with the seven tragedies he has planned. When Genevieve comes aboard unexpectedly, Peter wants nothing more than to get her off the yacht. When he is unable to get rid of her, Peter reluctantly accepts that he will have to kill her. Though he is used to having collateral damage during his missions, he is confused by his reluctance when it comes to Genevieve.

Anne Stuart doesn't dissapoint in COLD AS ICE. If you are a fan of her work, you won't be dissapointed by Peter nor by Genevieve. Peter is a classic Stuart hero...emotionless and frighteningly effcient. The twists and turns of this book in regard to the suspense will keep you on the edge of your seat. Actually, the romance will keep you on the edge of your seat, as well. Genevieve's confusion in relation to her feelings about Peter really make you sympathize with her as a woman.

I feel the need to address the review(s) below regarding Peter's bi-sexuality. Peter is not a bi-sexual character. There is absolutely NO sexual explicit content of him with another man. The bottom line in regard to his sexuality is that in his job, he does what needs to be done. He can turn is emotions on and off at will, which is what makes him as good of an operative as he is. Please don't let that turn you away from this book. It is barely worth mentioning.

Warning up front for people who haven't read and admired the brilliance of author Anne Stuart before - her books are strong. She asks you to dance on the razor's edge, plays the Pied Piper and commands you to dance into the fire. She pushes the reader to go where most writers won't ask. I always wanted to write heroes like Stuart, but I get too intrigued with the complexities of males, adore them, and love what makes them tick, how they react differently to given situations than we do. I fear only Stuart can conjure and breath life into a Stuart Bad Boy. I also fear some writers write men as we'd like them to be, not as they are. Stuart gives us pure gamma rogue males. These males are beyond laws, beyond morals, often beyond kindness. They are Dark, Dangerous and Deadly. What your mama warned you to stay away from. They are heartbreakers. They are Stuart's Bad Boys. She gives you men that are not heroes by most standards, yet with the power of a sorceress, she compels you to love them. We are a poor moth to her males' flames. So if you cannot take your males raw and unvarnished, then you might want to give Stuart a pass, because you will come away mesmerized, shaken. Stuart holds up the mirror and forces the reader to look deep into oneself, and that rattles some. She is a brilliant talent few writers ever achieve. At home equally in Historicals or Contemporary Romances, Stuart has taken use into the fire, now wants us to be cold as ice. The Resident Genius of Romance strikes bull's-eye again in this edgy tale.

Genevieve Spenser is tired. A nice get away for Costa Rica lies ahead. Only there is one more thing she must do before she can kick back - get papers signed by Harry Van Dorn. He is a wealthy client of her firm, so she knows there is no getting around running this chore for them. She is quickly on route to his yacht, and hopes to pick up the papers, then be on her way to sun, beach and cabana boys fetching her funny drinks with paper hats.

Only, Harry Van Dorn isn't just a wealthy businessman; he's a merchant of chaos, and its Peter Jensen's job to stop him from executing plans he's set in motion that could devastate the world. Genevieve's arrival is untimely for his plans, so he wants her gone. When he cannot get rid of her, he accepts he will have to kill (a theme Stuart made us face and accept in the brilliant Moonrise). Peter is a killer, an assassin. Again, Stuart delights in giving us "heroes" who are not heroes by any fashion we know. He is a gamma rogue, a male who lives by his own rules, that can kill, cheat, lie and steal to do what must be done. However, Peter is finding dealing with Genevieve troublesome, to say the least.

Genevieve is a strong heroine, so much fun, and Peter is one of Stuart's Bad Boys that evokes the heroine - and the reader - to walk on the razor's edge. Stuart delivers, yet again, one strong read that dazzles from start to finish.

Anne Stuart is known for her bad-boy heroes, but in Cold as Ice it's the heroine who steals the show. Genevieve Spenser is a wonderful character - she grew up nouveau pauvre, in a family that insists on keeping up appearances despite the fact that the money's all gone, and it gives her a unique mix of effortless cultivation and real toughness. Peter Jensen admires her because she never gives up - she always fights back, even though she doesn't stand a chance against a team of trained professionals. She doesn't lose her cool, she keeps her dignity, she doesn't whine or have hysterics.

Peter is the Iceman - the perfect operative, conscientious, careful, totally dedicated to his job. First he's just upset that he hasn't managed to get Genevieve out of danger - he's never killed an innocent before, and he doesn't want to. Then he toys with her, testing the limits of her resilience; he taunts her and she doesn't break down, he teases her with the possibility of escape, and he's full of admiration when her reaction is just to listen and learn. Ultimately, Peter finds out that he wasn't just toying with her after all.

The plot is well-paced, and I liked the twists and turns; each shift in the villain's dastardly plans ends up making emotional demands on Peter and Genevieve in a way that propells their relationship forward. I could have wished that the novel were longer, took place over a greater period of time, so that their relationship could develop into something more solid, but I believed the connection between the two.

Excellent story teeming with tension and suspense. Not a lot of sex, but intense and intriguing interaction and development of feelings between the girl, Genevieve, and her killer, Peter. Even though I normally prefer romance novels over suspense/mystery, and I consider this more of the latter, I loved it. However, I could not take a steady diet of this kind of book because it was too nerve racking and scary. I did have a couple of complaints which is why I'm not giving it 5 stars. I did not like Genevieve's stupidity. She was near the top of her law school class, yet she was stupid in two scenes near the end of the book. Twice, when a good guy was trying to save her life and take out a bad guy and they both had guns, she rushed into the middle of it. In one case, the good guy nearly shot her not knowing it was her. In the second case, she distracted the good guy and he got shot. I also wished there was more detail at the end of the book. I wanted to know what conversations took place before she went to the Wiltshire home. I also wanted just a few more pages showing the final romance between Genevieve and the guy at the end. Sexual content: strong.

I always look forward to Anne Stuart's novels. They're so different than most of what's out there because the romance is never what you would typically expect in any other book. Why? Because you never really know what her heroes are going to do next. Peter Jensen is a great addition to the rest. At first he appears to be unassuming and meek, but pretty quickly you find out that he's the guy that even the bad guys are afraid of. At times I wasn't sure if he was going to let Genevieve be killed, kill her himself or save her life. He's unpredictable, mostly amoral, and strangely fascinating.

Genevieve is also a great heroine. She's a seemingly snotty overpriced, overdressed lawyer who only cares about getting the job done and starting her vacation. Except, she too, is more than what she appears to be- she grew up poor and she started her career idealistic, trying to put the bad guys away. And her vacation? Backpacking through the rainforests of Costa Rica. She's a nice addition to the story, a perfect match for Peter and their chemistry practically jumps off the page. Cold is Ice is a great follow up to Black Ice. I can't wait to see what she writes next.

"Cold As Ice" is the much anticipated follow-up to Anne Stuart's wonderful, darkly romantic thriller, "Black Ice"; it is the second in a series of novels featuring members of a covert group of ruthless operatives employed by a quasi-government agency ominously referred to as "The Committee". "Cold As Ice" is a page-turner of a story delivered in Anne Stuart's trademark fluid prose, with a complex, interesting hero and plucky, prickly heroine. It is a worthy follow-up to "Black Ice", although not quite as delicious as the original (mainly because the hero of "Cold As Ice" cannot compete with "Black Ice"'s hero, Bastien Toussaint, in the smoldering sensuality department. Bastien was *French*, after all!)

The hero of "Cold As Ice" is Peter Jensen, currently the Committee's premiere assassin and "closer", a man renowned for his ability to separate himself from his emotions and do whatever it takes to get the job done. Jensen himself muses sardonically that his line of work involves "Saving the world, one murder at a time." Called "The Iceman" for both his temperament and his cool British efficiency in his profession, Jensen possesses a chameleon-like ability to blend into his background, so much so that the heroine, corporate lawyer Genevieve Spenser, all but overlooks him when she first encounters him posing as the bland but hyper-efficient personal assistant to billionaire playboy Harry Van Dorn. Genevieve has come to Van Dorn's private mega-yacht in the Caribbean to deliver some papers for signature prior to beginning her own vacation in Costa Rica. But the billionaire's public facade as a genial philanthropist hides the mind of a very evil, twisted megalomaniac, and the Committee and Peter Jensen are in place to bring Van Dorn down. Genevieve ends up being in the wrong place at the wrong time when she is forced to spend the night on Van Dorn's yacht and finds herself being held hostage as part of a deadly scheme spun by ruthless people who refer to her possible death as "collateral damage" (and those are the good guys.)

"Enigma" is the crossword puzzle word that the rather uncannily helpful personal assistant Peter Jensen supplies for Genevieve at the beginning of the book, and the word serves as a good description of his character. He is a fascinating character, but his chilly temperament and emotional distance make him a lot harder to warm up to than Bastien from "Black Ice". Although he certainly is able to appreciate the moral ambiguities of his work, Peter is both more principled and less jaded than Bastien was. Peter dislikes the idea of an innocent bystander such as Genevieve being treated as collateral damage, although he is prepared to do his duty "for the greater good" in order to foil Van Dorn's evil schemes. Peter's gradual emotional thawing is one of the high points of the book. Genevieve is also something of a chameleon--transforming from a poised, elegantly groomed Manhattan lawyer into a brave, scrappy fighter who never gives up despite being totally out of her league with Peter and the other members of the Committee. Genevieve is more intelligent, more brittle and more angry (and therefore, more interesting) than the usual Anne Stuart heroine, but she is (oh, *so* unfortunately!) given a world-class Too Stupid To Live Moment that uses up a lot of the good will that her character has built up prior to that point in the story. Villainous billionaire Harry Van Dorn is an over-the-top MOO-HAA-HAAAA type of evil madman who plots global mass murder and mayhem--based on astrological charts and his lucky number seven, is a bigot, a sadistic pervert and a child abuser. He even hates dogs. Harry's character could have been a little bit more nuanced, IMO.

The plot zips right along and I confess that I stayed up until 2:30 AM finishing the book. Peter's rather daring sexual history (he is heterosexual but has slept with both men and women in the past as part of his job and his cover) has been the subject of much pre-release discussion on the internet, both positive and negative. It is part of his "sex as a weapon" persona, and the sensual scenes in this story (all between the hero and heroine, BTW) are both edgy and intense. Unfortunately, the emotional connection between Peter and Genevieve is not quite as convincingly developed as their irresistible physical attraction, perhaps because they both are so good at hiding their emotions and the story is set up for them to be in almost constant conflict. (Since she is aware that he has been ordered to kill her, it is actually surprising that they get along as well as they do.) I loved the claustrophobic settings on the yacht and the private Caribbean island.

In summary, this is a well-written, fast-paced romantic suspense, highly recommended to those who like their heroes *very* dark and dangerous and their stories complex and emotionally charged.

The best romance I have read in a long, long time.

And the reason is. Peter Madsen. Just thinking his name sends warm shivers running up my spine.

The persona of Peter completely pervades this novel. When the story isn't being told from his pov he still dominates totally the thoughts of the heroine. I can't blame her. Peter is divine. Not least because, despite his self-assurance, the mission crumbles around him and the reader gets a real feeling of doomed love. Although what he sees in the blonde, cultured, successful Genevieve Spencer (who at 30 years of age could only be described as 'young' by a truely ancient person) is anyone's guess.

The thriller part of the novel is pretty pathetic though. The evil chief baddie, van Dorn is an incompetent nit-wit. But I don't care. It just gives more opportunity for the main couple to spend lots of time on verbally sounding each other out.

It's very similar to Diamond Bay by Linda Howard, although the morals which characterize Cold As Ice are a lot more dubious.

Gross scenes; absolutely none.

Best scenes; when Genevieve thinks she's in 'some third-world bog' and it turns out she's in a millionaires hideaway in California; when the ugly orphans backchat van Dorn.

But best of all; some lovely, lovely prose; mainly focused on a man who is in the process of falling deeply in love and he doesn't understand the why's or the wherefore's of it all.

Plus; strictly speaking, only two consumation scenes...all the rest is foreplay.

Basically. This is the story of a captive who gets her captor to fall in love with her. And then she in turn falls in love with him for no other reason than that he makes her happy. (Something that she hasn't been for a long time.) So, lots of emotional risk taking...just my kind of story. He in turn rescues her when he doesn't have to. And she shows her gratitude by accidentally geting him shot and almost killed...twice. Poor Peter. Not that he doesn't thoroughly deserve all the bad things that happen to him. It was a total pleasure to read how Genevieve inexorably reels him in despite all his tough talk.

I had absolutely no trouble believing in their HEA.

Fantastic.

I think I can say with impunity that Anne Stuart is one of the finest writers of Romantic fiction on the market today. She sketches out her characters with the finest of strokes, rather than bludgeoning the reader with heavy-handed descriptions and laborious, play-by-play motivations.
In light of this praise, you may well be wondering why I chose to give 'Cold As Ice' only three stars.
Well ... while I usually find Stuart's style refreshing and engrossing, enjoying the way she pushes the boundaries (who else could pull off a court jester or a monk as a romantic lead, i ask you?)and an attention to detail that is engaging without being pedantic - 'Cold As Ice' just didn't quite cut it (no pun intended). I found it perfunctory, as if written as something of a stop-gap between Black Ice and the upcoming Ice Blue.
That deft touch with characterisation I mentioned?- I think in this book it backfired - ending up less subtle and more vague. I found I had little empathy for either character, nor did I find the chemistry between them convincing - they seemed to find themselves in a romantic clinch that left the reader kinda wondering how they got there. It was a lack of connection that left me feeling lukewarm. (I won't say cold - for one thing this IS an Anne Stuart novel, and for another it's just too ghastly a pun).
I enjoyed it - I'll put it on my shelf - but as far as Stuart's writing goes I have definately read better.
I must say, however, that I am looking forward to Ice Blue. A big fan of Miyazaki - not the mention 'Final Fantasy - Advent Children' - I continue to expect great things.

I read Black Ice recently and I was so thrilled that I went and ordered all Ice books afterwards. This is my second of the series and while it was very fast-paced, interesting and addictive ("just another chapter and then I'll sleep for sure" style), it was not Black Ice. While the action was just as good, I found Genevieve and Peter a less interesting couple and their romance lacking. I especially disliked the ending, in fact I almost hated it.

What bothered me:
-Both hero and heroine kept denying their attraction and feelings for each other for wwwwaaaayyyyy too long
-Peter was actually "Cold as Ice". I like a cold, aloof hero but he was robot-like and so self-controlled it irritated me

What I really hated about the ending(---SPOILERS---)
-Peter actually went on and used Genny as a bait to catch Harry in the end. And the worst thing is he KNEW that had he suggested to Harry that he, Peter, gave himself up instead of Genevieve, Harry would have gladly accepted. So, he could have taken her place at a risky situation and didn't, but put business first. This makes him less than a Knight in shining armor
-Also, Peter was determined to not leave the Comittee for Genevieve, as Bastien did for Chloe. To me, this confirms that he was really cold enough to actually put his work ahead of his feelings. Certainly not the decision I have come to expect from a romance book hero
-Genevieve was, in the end, what we call Too Stupid To Live; Bastien warned her that Peter stood a better chance if she didn't distruct him but she thought she knew better than a professional agent; she went after Peter and as a result got him shot.
-The fact that Peter suffered a limp from Genevieve's rush action, is what made him leave his job which he otherwise wouldn't. And I can't help but wonder, how will the heroine feel for the rest of her life knowing she caused his limp and that hadn't there been this injury, he might left her for good? These facts make their HEA too fragile for my taste.

As a synopsis though, it was an engaging book, filled with action and a little dark despite the Carribean sun which is a plus for me. The romance was second-rate though and the hero too cold and business-like to make it into any "memorable heroes list". Nevertheless, Ms Stuart's writing was excellent and I can't wait to start Blue Ice, Takeshi's story.

You have to understand that Anne Stuart does not create ordinary hero's. In this case, "Peter Jensen" is a cold, robot-like trained killer. He is known to have ice in his veins. This is a book where romance is not overflowing but subtle. You have to watch every crack in the hero's armor to understand how much he loves the heroine. This technique is even more moving than blatant romance.
Definitely a must-read! Another Anne Stuart winner!