Cold As Ice - Anne Stuart

Cold As Ice has been in my TBR pile for a while and this weekend I finally got around to read it. I just ordered Ice Blue so I thought it was the perfect timing.

Genevieve Spenser is a lawyer, she stop's by Harry Van Dorn's yacht - a known billionaire and philantropist - to have him sign some contracts. van Dorn is in fact a bad character and is preparing a series of terrorist acts and decides to make Genevieve his newest toy/victim and invites her to stay.

Van Dorn's assistant is Peter Jensen - on of the Committee's operatives - and is in fact preparing to close down V.D. murderous activities. Genevieve is thrown in the middle of a dangerous situation and Peter tries to keep her alive and safe.

For me the book has 2 different parts. In the first Genevieve is totally oblivious to V.D's true personality and while Peter tries to keep her alive she only thinks of attacking him and saving Harry Van Dorn. I think he should have made her aware of what was really happening. Genevieve also suffers a bit of the TSTL syndrome, she never shuts up and instead of cowering in fear of being threatened by international terrorists she is always trying to fight back and usually making things worse. At least in the second half she knows V.D is a bad guy...

I did love Peter! Here we have another strong hero melting at the sight of the right woman. he fights the attraction right from the beginning and tries to save her several times even if he almost gets killed for his efforts. Her starts as a true Ice Man using sex as a weapon - and he shows Genevieve exactly how he does that - but he changes throughout the book and becomes vulnerable to his emotions for her.

I didn't like Harry as a villain because he was a bit over the top. We are never really told what the committee did to stop his "Rule of Seven" terrorrist threats and we are never really made aware of his motivations except that he likes to torture people. He sounds more like a cartoon figure, releasing the children he is planning to murder because they smell bad...

This was a very solid B and now I'm looking forward to Takashi and Isobel's stories...