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A review by romancelibrary
Cold as Ice by Anne Stuart
4.5
"Something was forcing him to be there, to come after her, to pluck her from the jaws of danger. He just didn't know what it was."
Note: Content warning tagged as spoiler at the end of review.
Similarly to Black Ice, Cold As Ice is not for everyone. If you enjoy dark and fast-paced romantic suspense with cold anti heroes, then I highly recommend this series. You definitely won't enjoy the books in this series if anti heroes is not your thing. And I'm not talking about soft anti heroes like the ones Kleypas has written. These are cold, ruthless, and hard anti heroes. Anti heroes who, at first, prioritize their mission over the safety of the heroine.
"It didn't matter if the fate of the world rested in his hands — he wasn't going to let Genevieve Spenser be hurt. And he had absolutely no intention of examining why he felt that way."
Anne Stuart writes delicious and dark anti heroes like no other author. Stuart's bad boys are so ruthless, cold, and unfeeling...that is, until they become soft for their heroines. What I like the most about her anti heroes is that they don't immediately become soft; it's a process that takes time. In the Ice series so far, the heroines find themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time. The heroes are covert operatives who are on a mission and the only way to successfully complete their mission is to make sure that there are no loose ends. And the heroines are definitely loose ends here. So in the beginning, these anti heroes basically have no problem with their heroines getting killed...until they slowly start getting soft and go out of their way to protect their women. Their burgeoning feelings make them less cold, but not any less ruthless when it comes to doing their job. Like I said, it's a special process trademarked by Anne Stuart; only she can get away with writing these kinds of romance novels.
In Cold As Ice, there's no immediate insta-love or insta-lust between Peter and Genevieve, which is why this unlikely couple completely ensnared me. The lack of insta-lust is the main reason why 1) I enjoyed this book a little more than its predecessor and 2) why Peter and Genevieve end up having such explosive chemistry later on. Peter is known as the Ice Man. He is cold and unfeeling — he's even colder than Bastien, the hero in Black Ice. But that's what makes him such an appealing anti hero and a compelling character overall. He does and says questionable and hurtful things. He can be such an asshole. But ugh, I just can't hate him, I don't know why. If this hero was written by any other author, I would have hated his guts. I don't know how Anne Stuart does it!!!!!
The timeline is tight: the entire book takes place in the space of, what, a month? I LOVE the setting of the yacht and the private island. It made the book that much more exciting to read. The heroine, Genevieve, was great in the first half of the story, but she became super annoying in the second half. Maybe it's the dangerous situations she was forced into or maybe it's the fact that she didn't have her tranquilizers with her, but she started behaving stupidly in the second half of the book. She really tested my patience. That being said, I don't hate her. And like I said before, Peter is an incredibly compelling character. I only wish he was romantic like Bastien lol. I really wanted a passionate love declaration from the Ice Man. And I really wish there was an epilogue!!! This book was really close to getting a 5 star rating.
Content warning: