Cold As Ice by Anne Stuart

Let's face it, we all know this is a keeper for me being the Anne Stuart fangirl that I am.

That said, I think this is one of her better stories and I loved the heroine. It is rare that Stuart gives us such a strong and likable heroine and I am so voting for Genevieve Spenser as my Favourite Heroine of 2006 at AAR.

Cindy Blurb: Genevieve Spenser is one high powered attorney and she has the bling to prove it. She was once down and dirty in the world of law but she was attacked one night by a battered woman's husband. Having survived the attack she learned how to protect herself, moved to a safer part of the city and thus a new line of work and lost herself in a world not her own.

Genevieve has finally decided to take a vacation but she needs to get one of the firms 'huge' clients to sign some paper work. This puts her on a yacht of a billionaire that she wishes she could thumb her nose at but is forced to be civil to. Civility forces her to stay over night on the boat and thus, her movement into the line of fire.

Peter (The Ice Man) Jensen is an undercover operative for a collection of agencies trying to keep world order. Or peace. Whatever. He is serving as the billionaire's aide in order to discover what kind of maniacal plans he has in store for the world. The night Genevieve steps on the yacht turns out to be the night of reckoning for the billionaire and the lawyer is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now if only the Ice Man can do as ordered and kill the innocent who has stumbled onto the scene.

*sigh*

I love me some Anne Stuart.

Onwards!

I'll say what I noticed as a problem for the story. Peter was almost too much of an Ice Man. In other words, he was able to bait Genevieve and reply coldly to her to the point where I started to wonder if he did find anything about her appealing. He said he did but he was also able to convince himself that murdering an innocent had never been part of his job before. Turns out I found this quite convincing so the idea that he was falling in love with Genevieve (he starts to call her Genny) was hard to find in his own mind!

Another thing was that the villain of the piece was really evil. Really, really evil and had one hell of a plan that was scary in it's scope. Now this is perfect for someone who likes to see villains who are not cartoon characters. The problem came when all his plans were foiled, he decided he needed to kill Genevieve. Somehow this would make him feel better.

Yeah. Not exactly as scary as it could have been.

As to the rest? Loved it!

Stuart finally gave one of her contemporary heroines some skills and it was wonderful. Genevieve wasn't afraid to try and keep escaping and was able to make decisions on the fly about her own survival. Not only that, she was lippy and since I tend to have a mouth I liked that she didn't back down from a fight. She is probably one of my favourite heroines so a huge thank you to Ms. Stuart.

I tried to figure out how someone who wasn't an Anne Stuart fangirl would rate this book and it just wouldn't gel with me. For example, there was a book years ago called The Widow that I still own and it's on the keeper shelf but I think it would be rated at a C if it was lucky. Cold As Ice, however, had everything I liked in a Stuart book so I think it sits firmly in the A range which would still make it a keeper.

So there you have it.

KEEPER, KEEPER, KEEPER, KEEPER, KEEPER!!