Customer Reviews

Ice: A Novel

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(26)
1 star:		(51)

 

 

Linda Howard is on my short list of auto-buy authors and several of her older books are on my keeper shelf but this one won't make it!

The story is short and thin, the characters are flat and uninteresting. The only thing we really know about our hero is that he loves his son and can kill a man with his elbow. We find out a little more about the heroine but it's more disturbing; she grew up as the daughter of locally influential, well known people, but somehow she got through the first 18 years of her life without making a single friend. Her redeeming feature now seems to be that she can kill the villainess with a ball peen hammer and not suffer any guilt.

Quick sex in the shower and it's happily-ever-after for these two.

If, like me, your hand twitches to reach for any book with Linda Howard's name on it, here's my advice - wait for the paperback of this one and then buy it used, or better still, borrow it from your local library.

It's never a good sign when you finish a $22.00 hardcover in about an hour, maybe a paperback but never a hardcover. Overall, I echo the thoughts of others - the book was too short and needed more character development. Burn was better than Ice. That's rather sad when you consider that Burn was a three star book. It's a shame that Linda Howard is now putting out this type of book. She's a better writer than this. Even at the Amazon price of $11.00 I'd recommend checking the library for this title.

STORY BRIEF:
Gabriel is an army sergeant in the military police, based in North Carolina. He comes home to Maine just before Christmas. His father is sheriff and asks Gabriel to go to the Helton home outside of town. An ice storm is coming, and the sheriff is worried that Lolly may not know about the storm and may be stranded. There is no cell phone service near her home. Gabriel and Lolly attended high school together. Their high school relationship was antagonistic. He taunted her. She insulted him. Her father was mayor at the time. He thought of her as Miss Hoity-Toity Helton.

Lolly's family moved away years ago but kept the mountain-side home. Lolly recently came back to pack things up and arrange to sell it. A couple of meth addicts needing money, follow her home with plans to beat, rape and rob her. Meanwhile Gabriel is on his way to her home.

REVIEWER'S OPINION:
I love this author. She knows how to tell a good story with good characters. This was an enjoyable escape. The downside was that it was a "short story" - half the size of a normal book. It would have been nice to have more time for more relationship development. But as a short story it was good for suspense, action, conflicts, and some romantic development. There was one lovely sex scene.

Unfortunately I'm in the minority. I think many reviewers did not like this book because it was too short. I paid $9 which was a bit much, but it would be worthwhile to get from the library.

DATA:
Story length: 196 pages. Swearing language: strong. Sexual language: mild. Number of sex scenes: one, three pages long. Setting: current day Wilson Creek, Maine. Copyright: 2009. Genre: romantic suspense.

OTHER BOOKS:
For a list of my reviews of other Linda Howard books, see my 5 star review of "Burn" posted 7-11-09.

Look, I'm a die hard LH fan. Have been for years but this book SUCKED! Am I the only one who's noticed that the heart has gone out of LH's work? I don't mind that the story was short, I mind that the story was bad. The first LH story I ever read was a short story and I was hooked ("Lake of Dreams") and have been a fan ever since then but the last 6 books or so have not been nearly as good as her earlier works like "After The Night" or "Dream Man". The story didn't make sense to me. LH spends a lot of time describing how hard it was for our hero and heroine to get around in the ice but the bad guys don't seem to have the same problems. I mean, come on, Nikki made it up a 150 foot incline in no time after wrecking her truck and injuring herself, but it took forever for Lolly and Gabriel to make it back to the house. Unbelievable! It seems to me that LH is now relying on fans like myself to keep buying her books in hopes that she will finally produce something that compares to her earlier work. I'm done now. I'll never buy another LH book until I read it first and if it's good I'll buy it for my "keep it" shelf. I'm tired of LH taking her fans for granted and thinking it's ok to keep writing junk because we'll buy whatever she writes. As for me, I'm done.

I have been a rabid Linda Howard fan for decades. This is not a very good effort for her. This is not a novel, it is a short story at best. There is virtually no character development. I don't know anything more about the protagonists at the end than I did at the beginning. The finale was really weak and inconclusive, as if time ran out on a test and she had to turn in what she had so far. The story jumps back and forth between character perspectives to repeat timelines. As a result, the flow of the story became jerky and redundant. Multiple perspectives can be a very interesting tool if something new is being brought to the story. In this case, the action was predictable the first time around and no new light was shed with the re-telling. The book almost became a sermon on "Meth addicts bad" and "Ice storms bad". This is not news and the story did not provide an especially interesting take on either topic. At half-price, it is still over-priced. Hopefully her next effort will be an actual novel.

I so enjoy Linda Howard's books. Many of them I read again and again. This book had characters I could not care about, and it made me wonder if someone was forcing her into a holiday release. Given another 300 pages, it may have been a book worth reading. As it is, I'm glad the book wars were going on, so I spent less money on a proven author.

The "novel" Ice is 198 pages long. It's rushed, disjointed and definitely not Linda Howard's best work-- probably in the bottom two or three. This is the type of offering that is put in a collection with three or four other authors-- it isn't a stand alone.

I've never read anything so dreadful from her word processer before. The plot was well...far fetched is the easiest description I could come up with. How many times did we get to hear about the hero being Big and Muscular? How many times did the villains irrational acts be explained away because they're Meth addicts? How many times was the heroine being plucky and having gumption? The romance, though I don't think it can be called romance, was non-existant. Pardon me, I like a little bit more in the foreplay department than, "I'm cold, let's take a shower together and warm up." And despite all that occured in this book, and I had to try and suspend my disbelief throughout this book, I honestly don't think that the hero and heroine really needed to start talking about getting together. There wasn't anything there except extreme circumstances and a shower scene.

I liked Burn, but even then...Linda, step away from the computer and go outside for a couple of months. Play in the yard, Adopt a Highway, or just go shopping. Do something other than write drivel that's forced. Wait for inspiration to strike, don't force it.

226 pages of nothing.

The plot was thin, unbelievable and contained very little substance. The hero and heroin sprint to the finish in an unbelievable story of kidnap to rescue / hate to romace / single to couple, in a matter of hours. Like many others who have left comments on the infamous line "Can I lick you lollipop" will go down as one of the absolute worst lines ever written in a romance novel. I could not help but shake my head, it was simply a ridiculous ending to a book that never should have been published.

I will no longer purchase LH books on pre-order from Amazon, this book was a waste of money. I will instead plan to read the first chapter of any future books while in a book store, this way I still have buying power.

I have been a Linda Howard fan for more than 2 decades. I loved her series Romance when I was a young mother, and grew up with her when she crossed into mainstream. I always eagerly awaited her next novel, and while there have been a couple of books that I passed on because the story line didn't appeal, I never doubted that they were strong books. However, Ice was a revelation. I couldn't even believe it was the same author.
One of the things I have always loved about Howard's books is the character development of her hero and heroine. In this book, there is just nothing. In fact, there is very little interaction between the hero and heroine. It is more just a recitation of the elements and challenges they are facing side-by-side. (Her feet were frozen. It was cold. I get it!) I feel like I know more about the villains than the hero and heroine.
What really irks me is the fact that I paid hardcover price for it. It just makes me feel as though I've been ripped off. It seems as though she just threw a bunch of stuff together and traded on her name to sell it, and to hell with the fact that people might spend their hard-earned money on this empty read. That's why, for the first time ever, I decided to read reviews of her book Burn before I bought it. As they say, once burned.... Apparently, I can skip that one. It may be time to find a new favorite author.