Customer Reviews

Ice Blue

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Wow! Summer Hawthorne and Takashi O'Brien are by far the best couple so far in Anne Stuart's Ice series. Takashi is an operative for the super secret Committee. His mission is to retrieve an ancient Japanese urn and then eliminate its owner Summer. If the urn falls into the wrong hands or Summer herself, for that matter, countless lives could be lost. A crazed religious fanatic believes the urn holds the key to his apocalyptic vision.

Summer is a pragmatic American. She knows the religious sect wants the urn so she is trying to keep it well hidden. The moment Takashi enters her life, it is never the same. He rescues her from danger but she also is aware he could kill her at any moment. Takashi is a man used to following orders but he finds reasons not to obey the Committee chairwoman, who sees Summer as a real liability.

This book is a roller coaster ride of adventure. Takashi and Summer move from one high drama to the next as they try to stay one step ahead of the religious cult leader and his henchmen.

Anne Stuart marvelously keeps the tension simmering. Both Summer and Takashi are incredibly complex individuals that seem perfect for each other from their first meeting. Summer is very likeable. Rarely are romance heroines bold, smart and vulnerable. She does not have to be continually rescued from her own plans, she is too intelligent for that. She realizes Takashi and the Committee hold most of the cards.

Takashi is alpha male but also vulnerable with Summer. Anne Stuart allows the reader glimpses of his family situations past and present (he is half Japanese and American, related to a Japanese mobster). He walks the fine line between hero and villain. No one can write about the tortured hero/ bad boy like Anne Stuart. This one goes on my keeper shelf.

Ice Blue is a hard driving suspense and romance set in the midst of a global power struggle against the catastrophic plans of delusional religious cult leader surrounded by New Age enthusiasts and the best scientific minds the Cold War could provide. A professional Japanese operative is ordered to obtain an art relic and then kill his hostage but surprising twists and unfolding details repeatedly derail the completion of those orders. Romantic suspense fills every scene of Ice Blue to the N-th degree!

Museum curator and Asian art scholar Summer Hawthorne treasures the blue ceramic bowl as a gift from her beloved Japanese nanny. Summer values her childhood memories of eating cookies from it over its current high monetary value. When her quirky mother Lianne joins The True Realization Fellowship, a Japanese religious cult headed by the albino Shirosama, Summer knows that if her mother had her way, her beloved bowl will be only one more family heirloom that increases the coffers of this strange cult.

When Takashi O'Brien ("Taka") saves Summer from Shirosama's followers and a certain death, she does not know whether to trust him or fear him. He may have temporarily saved the bowl from the True Realization but only so that he could take it. If the look in his eyes did not scare her, his tattoo does. Taka belongs to the Yakuza (the Japanese Mafia). She has already seen him kill more than once to achieve his objective and his plans for her are no secret. Even more disturbing is the use to which this bowl will be put once possession is attained. The macabre and delusional visions of his Holiness Shirosama are far more deadly than the sarin gas attacks of the Tokyo subways by the Aum Shinrikyo cult and or the Jonestown mass suicide "The People's Temple" led by the Reverend Jim Jones.

The reader knows every cruel thought and mission detail as it unfolds --- and still the page-turning suspense builds until the very last line. Despite her hostage situation, Summer is an unusual heroine-victim --- weak, strong, intelligent, feminine, bruised from the past endowed with a quirky sense of humor. The unusual pairing of the family rejected half-breed Yakuza operative and the sensitive museum curator who thinks of herself as unattractive electrifies the suspense. The romance is hard, somewhat cruel yet soul-healing and even tender at moments, but most of all unforgettable. The family relationships of the main characters and the secondary characters are complex and deepen the psychological motivations and histories of Taka and Summer. Ice Blue will sear these two characters and their struggle into the reader's memory long after the book is closed.

I have always liked Anne Stuart's unlikely heros and the one in this novel is just delicious. Couldn't put it down and I am fasinated by the interaction between our characters. If you have read BLACK ICE and COLD AS ICE you will recognize Takashi O'Brien from those novels. HE is a member of the Committee. A secret organization that tries to protect the world from terrorists and meglomaniacs. They are ruthless people, they have to consider the greater good. I have loved these novels and Anne Stuart knows how to make them human.

Summer Hawthorne is the daughter of a wealthy, selfish, rich woman who has spent very little time taking care of this older daughter. Summer has rebelled by distanceing herself from the hollywood scene loved by her mother and step-father. She is not caught up in the beautiful people crowd. At one time she was loved and protected by her Japanese Nanny who left her a priceless ceramic bowl that is wanted by a Japanese Guru her mother studies under. Although the bowl was given to Summer her mother has promised it to the Shirosama.

Taka has been looking for a chance to aquire the bowl and silence Summer, who unknown to her, probably knows the location of the Shrine where the bowl came from. His orders are to take her out. Fortunately, he finds out the bowl on display at her museum is a copy, and he must protect and interroge her before he kills her. Needless to say, I couldn't put it down. I loved the sexual tension, the deep need Taka has to fulfill his task, and the suspense of having the cult at their heels.

The Shirosama thinks he is the reincarnation of a thirteenth century rebel. That Shirosama was an albino, and was forced to perform ritual suicide by his peers at that time. Our Shirosama intends to follow in his footsteps and start a world wide cleansing by killing as many people as he can with biological and gas weapons, that he has stockpiled. He needs the bowl to hold the ashes of the old Shirosama and he has to find out the location of the shrine. With millions of followers he has all the help he needs and when he is done many will be released from their karma to begin a new existance.

Taka and Summer wind up in Japan and the book reachs a shocking climax. I enjoyed every page and encourage you not to miss this one or the others in the series. A new one will be out in Nov. I am already looking forward to it.

Ice Blue is a fun adventure novel, but it bothered me.

This brilliant PHD museum curator Summer gets caught up in an international terrorist plot of a crazed Japanese cult leader. Summer is smart and resourceful and doesn't seem to bothered by all the crazy violence swirling around her, but she can't figure out that lusting/loving a man who has clearly confessed that he intends to murder her is oh... a bad idea.

Taka actually tortures Summer when she refuses information, but the idiot woman can't figure out he's bad for her. Maybe she really belongs in a trailer park with a beer guzzling redneck named "Billy" who slaps her around on pay day if she holds back tips from her job at the Waffle House.

I did finish the book, but have seriously mixed feelings on it. On one hand, there were no distracting editing errors, and the characters were all larger than life and fun and the story line was full of action and suspense. But on the other hand, the `hero' tortured the heroine yet she didn't get too upset about it.

Again, Summer may be better suited for the Happy Days Trailer Park where she and Taka can play victim and perpetrator every Saturday night to their hearts content.

Get the idea I don't' like Taka and Summer much?

Black Ice Chloe and Bastian translator and amoral burned out agent/spy in arms game
Cold as Ice Genevive and Peter lawyer and master spy who deems her collateral damage
Ice Blue Summer and Takashi PHD curator and agent sent to neutralize her
Ice Storm Isobel and Killian top Agent vs CIA finish some old business
Fire and Ice Jilly and Reno student and Yakuza punk agent flee hired killers

I've read Anne Stuart since her American Romance days, and I think she is a gifted author who writes some of the hottest, most powerful love scenes out there, but this plot was so bad I could well understand how it ended up at the local charity garage sale. Yes, she likes dark heroes, etc. That's all true. But a hit man? Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's some "Committee" angle, which is not well explained at all for anyone popping in mid-series, but unless you think Fascism is nifty, I'm not sure why membership in said Committee would excuse the death toll in the novel. The love scenes were great, which is why I'm giving it 3 stars, but without them it would be a solid 1.

Ice Blue is definitely the best out of the Ice series in my opinion, although I haven't read Cold as Ice and don't intend to because many say that the hero in that book is the most cold by far...I guess curiosity led me to this series because even though I do like a rake of a hero, I also like him begging for forgiveness and the heroine's love, you won't find that in this series.

The heroes are like the villains of the stories, but have a begrudging weak spot for their heroines....In Blue Ice Takashi may have been out to kill Summer but at every twist and turn he just cant do it, I like their first sexual encounter purely because he wanted to do it, not like in the other books where the hero had to do it because she was traumatized or he had to get information out of her....Takashi is probably the most showing of how he cares for the heroine later on in the book and that is why I liked it...spoiler: when he was holding her in the plane while she was knocked out because he didn't want her to get hurt by banging the sides it was pretty cute, especially when they landed and he continued to hold her till she woke up even though the danger of her being hurt was over, he just wanted to hold her

In Black as Ice, the hero is very very cold and it is not till the very end that we see him go to the heroine.. I didn't care for Fire and Ice because the heroine was annoying and the hero was supposed to protect her so he wasn't fighting against the fact that he had to kill her and he let her get hurt a lot without being concerned and said some pretty screwed up things to her

The Ice series is very well written and it is more of a thriller suspense type of book than an actual romance, but I would start with Ice Blue if you are used to reading romance-- o I love the ending of this one!
-so why only 4 stars, purely because I am a romantic at heart and favor a romance rather than a begrudging a affection that the hero fights for the whole book while treating the heroine very rudely

I don't get a chance to read from the romance/suspense genre very often as I usually try to avoid it - so I can't tell you how it compares to its fellow rivals or aquaintances. That may change after reading this story. I was cruising along the paperbacks at a local foodmarket and stumbled on this book. I read the summary on the back and bought it on a whim since it sounded interesting. Little did I know that the instant I picked it up to read right before bed, I ended up not sleeping at all. It is THAT AWESOME. I may be checking out the paperbacks more often now, especially for Anne Stuart.

This book isn't for everyone. Unless you're a diehard romantic who can stomach heady forbidden romances such as this, you may not enjoy the story quite as much. It was a nice intense read (BIG understatement), but truly, if I hadn't loved this story as I did, I wouldn't even have bothered writing a review for it.

My final advice? Go for it.

This is the first book that I have read by this author, but it will not be the last.This story starts with a young woman being saved from a kidnapping by the most handsome man she has ever met.The hero, under orders to kill her "to save the world" finds himself reluctant to harm her. So begins an exciting adventure that takes the couple to Japan, and into a "showdown" to litterly save the world. Yes, slightly improbable circumstances, but well worth reading for the adventure, and the love this couple finds. The hero is very skilled as a bodyguard, and HOT. The heroine is your adverage looking, slightly overweight woman with an intellect and personality that fascinates her protector. Do read this book for a few hours of escape into a world full of love and adventure where anything is possible.........

I enjoyed this book very much. Perhaps I'm used to Anne Stuart's 'cold to the bones' heroes so Taka's coldness doesn't bother me at all. In fact, it's quite fascinating to see a man with such cold heart and no emotion to finally fall hard for a woman; and to see him fight his feelings tooth and nail to the very end. I loved it! Anne Stuart is a goddess in my eyes :-)

I love Anne Stuart. I love her arrogant, control freak heroes and most of the time I love her heroines.

When we caught a glimpse of Taka O'Brian in Cold As Ice I had a feeling he'd be next and I wasn't disappointed to hear he'd be taking center stage in Ice Blue.

In fact, I wasn't disappointed in anything about Ice Blue. This is classic Stuart, a hero who isn't typical by any stretch. Flawed, damaged, hard as nails and you wonder if there's even a heart in there sometimes. But there is and slowly, Taka's character unfurls even as Summer's own does too.

I haven't ever read a Stuart novel where it felt comfortable and Ice Blue is no exception. Her books aren't for the faint of heart or if you're in the mood for a softer love story. From the first page, she will shove you to the edge and keep you there the whole time. It's a powerful, exhausting way to write and I admire her skill greatly.

Anyway, as you can tell, I loved the book and I'll definitely be back for more. She's setting the stage for Isobel to get a story and that little bit between Reno and Jilly was telling too. I can't wait