Fire and Ice - Anne Stuart

In the wake of a failed love affair, brainy beauty Jilly Lovitz takes off for Tokyo. She's expecting to cry on her sister Summer's shoulder, then spend a couple months blowing off steam in Japan. Instead, she's snatched away on the back of a motorcycle, narrowly avoiding a grisly execution attempt meant for her sister and brother-in-law.


Her rescuer is Reno, the Committee's most unpredictable agent. They'd met once before and the attraction was odd - tattooed Yakuza punk meets leggy California egghead - but electric. Now Reno and Jilly are pawns in a deadly tangle of assassination attempts, kidnappings and prisoner swaps that could put their steamy partnership on ice.

Fire and Ice is book 5 in Anne Stuart's Ice series, I must confess that falling in love with the first one I've found the others a bit repetitive and this one was no exception.

It is the story of Jilly Lovitz and Reno, both of which we met in Ice Blue where she was the heroine's sisters and he the hero's cousin. Jilly supposedly has a big IQ and not many social skills and Reno is a very troubled young man running away from commitments.

When this story starts Jilly is one her way to Japan. I found it a bit weird that she would just hop on a plane without making sure her sister would be home and expecting her. As it happens Summer wasn't home, didn't know she was coming and Reno is the one who saves the day. Jilly ends up in the middle of Japanese mafia war between Reno and Taka's grandfather and his enemies. She behaves like the young girl she is yes but the fact that she seldom followed Reno's orders ended up leading her to unnecessary trouble and I found that annoying.

There's is a sexual tension present between Jilly and Reno but he fights it most of the time because he promised Jilly's sister he would not get involved with her. I thought that was an odd promise to ask of someone and that Jilly, not knowing about it, kept throwing herself at him and thus getting hurt in the process.

I did like the glimpses we had of Japanese culture and habits (what's with the schoolgirl outfits?) and truth be told this is a very fast read, with lots of action and confrontation towards the grand finale. The ending was a bit abrupt though, following the same line as the others in the series. One of these days I might pick up the book 4, which I still haven't read, and see how it goes.

Grade: 4/5