'Ice Storm' by Anne Stuart

ISBN: 0778325008
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 352pp
Publisher: Mira
Pub. Date: November 2007
Price: $6.99

I am now a life long fan of Anne Stuart. After reading Ice Storm I can’t do anything else besides convert, there is just no use fighting it. You might find this a little extreme but I promise you it isn’t. And how can I even think of becoming a fan with just one book? Easily and you better believe I’m going to the bookstore to stock up on the rest of her titles in the Ice series.

Isobel Lambert is a cold-blooded professional working for a covert organization called The Committee based out of London. They have highly trained assassins stationed across the globe, cold blooded men and women all with Isobel at their head. Nicknamed the Ice Queen, or Irion Maiden, there is much more to Isobel than meets the eye.

Serafin the Butcher is the most dangerous man in the world. The Committee has already tried and failed to have him eliminated once. But when his name comes up a second time it isn’t for termination. Serafin has brokered a deal with the Committee, in exchange for his personal safety he is willing to trade information about the third world countries he’s been hiding out and causing havoc in.

Isobel, the head of the Committee, is the only operative able to go. Not to mention that Serafin asked for her personally. Her mission is to extricate him from North Africa and get him safely to England where he can be debriefed and then given a new identity. A simple job to Isobel’s mind until she discovers that Serafin the Butcher is really a man named Killian, a man from her past that she thought she had killed years ago.

With the Committee falling apart around her ears and Killian stirring all kinds of feelings she thought she could control Isobel is coming to the end of her tether. Her past and present collide putting her in the difficult position of feeling emotion once again while trying to keep from falling apart. Plus you get great sex scenes and a body count, how awesome is that?

Stuart’s characters are wonderful. I could gush at you for pages about how well she wrote Isobel and Killian, not to mention the rest of the characters who have their own titles to explore. I’m in love and I just can’t help myself. But I won’t subject you to such mushy fan-ism, what I will say is that I have rarely come across such complex and three dimensional characters. The fact that they are some of the worlds deadliest assassins helps though, too.

Ice Storm was great. No, it was nothing short of brilliantly fantastic. I literally could not put this one down and took an extra long lunch just so I could finish it. If you haven’t read Anne Stuart start now. But if you beat me to the bookstore be sure to leave a few for me.