Black Ice by Anne Stuart

I don't understand the heroine, Chloe. She gets tortured by a sadist with a hot knife and all she worries about is that the so-called friend who sent her into such a dangerous situation will be angry when she returns her ruined designer clothes. In fact. Until the aforementioned friend, her room-mate Sylvia, was horribly murdered I was half-inclined to think she was one of the bad people in the plot.

One of the interesting things about this novel is that quite a few women get killed. But not in that slash-and-kill sexual way but in a 'bad people die' sort of manner. Another quirk is that it is the hero who is the object of sexual desire for most of the women featured in the story.

This novel is much better than a 'romantic suspense' genre. It is actually a good thriller with a hefty helping of sex and romance between the main couple. And a high body count. Plus quite a bit of emotional and physical pain.

Just for a change I thought the bad people were all totally plausible.

Obviously Black Ice is not as mesmerising as Cold As Ice. The heroine spends too much of the novel sleeping or drugged. And the relationship between the main couple has almost no quiet moments where they can just enjoy or discover each other's personality. However Chloe and Bastian do get around to declaring their love for each other...something that was missing from Cold As Ice.

It's still a better than average romance read though.

I like Anne Stuart's couples. Despite the fact that they are all privately educated, tend to come from old money and are better-than-average in the looks department...men and women. I dislike the romance trend (no doubt started by the success of Jane Eyre) where handsome heroes get involved with dogs.

The moral of this story; being special is stressful and dangerous; much nicer (and safer) to live an ordinary life. Pooh. I also feel obliged to add that some people might view Bastian as a sexually incontinent creep.(Obviously not Chloe though.)