Romance & Passion

Depuis quelques années, je ne lis pratiquemment plus qu'en anglais. J'ai pris cette décision car certains de mes auteurs préférés étaient traduits seulement trois ou quatre ans après la sortie de leur roman dans les pays anglo-saxons. A vrai dire le premier a été assez difficile car je m'étais lancée dans la lecture d'un historique. Mais une fois le pas franchi, je ne regrette absolument pas d'avoir souffert car maintenant j'ai un choix immense et en plus cela m'a permis de redécouvrir Anne Stuart avec cette série que j'adore.
 C'est sombre, froid mais les héros sont vraiment fabuleux. Le style d'Anne Stuart peut surprendre mais une fois qu'on y adhère, on plonge dans un monde passionnant d'intrigues, de complots et surtout elle met en scène des héros et héroines inoubliables. J'ai un gros faible pour "Cold as Ice " notamment avec son héros Peter qui est troublant, ambigü. Un héros qui est loin de vous laisser de glace contrairement au titre.


Black Ice : Chloe Underwood, a 23-year-old American who regards herself as a disappointment to her high-achieving family, makes a meager living in Paris by translating children's books into English. After accepting a last-minute translating job in the French countryside, she discovers that rather than working for a consortium of food executives, she's stumbled upon a group of sadistic international arms dealers. Cold-blooded assassin Bastian Touissant, who was sent a year earlier by a nebulous "the ends justify the means" agency to infiltrate this shady group and try to stop its illegal activity, seems to blend right in. On meeting Chloe, Bastian isn't sure whether she's a spy, perhaps sent to kill him, or the innocent she appears to be. Despite his ruthlessness, Bastian can't resist saving Chloe's life (on multiple, graphic occasions) and attempting to send her back to her family in the U.S. 

Cold as Ice : In Anne Stuart's strong follow-up to 2005's spectacular Black Ice, supporting player Peter Jensen moves into the leading role in a romantic suspense story pitting him and other members of the mysterious "Committee"—a group of international secret agents—against Texas billionaire Harry Van Dorn and his diabolical plan to create seven worldwide tragedies for fun and profit. Unfortunately, the arrival of lawyer Genevieve Spencer on Van Dorn's yacht throws a wrench in Jensen's assassination scheme. While he could easily dispose of her as "collateral damage," Genevieve breaks through his icy veneer and he gives her the means to fight her way out of danger. The brilliant Van Dorn is wildly over the top in his depravity, easily outdoing the most shameless James Bond baddie, but Stuart's spare writing keeps the gripping story focused. Though too much relies on Jensen's failure to tell Genevieve about her client's true motives, and Genevieve herself is an inadequate match for the steely agent, the chemistry between them crackles. 

Stuart courts controversy with Jensen's lack of emotion and total body control, allowing him to use sex as a tool for disarming both women and men; her hero's sexual flexibility is bound to turn off some readers, just as it's bound to entice others. Those who take the plunge shouldn't be disappointed: Stuart knows how to take chances, and this edgy thriller shows how well they can pay off. 


Ice Blue : Museum curator Summer Hawthorne considered the exquisite ice-blue ceramic bowl given to her by her beloved Japanese nanny a treasure of sentimental value—until somebody tried to kill her for it.

The priceless relic is about to ignite a global power struggle that must be stopped at all costs. It's a desperate situation, and international operative Takashi O'Brien has received his directive: everybody is expendable. Everybody.

 Especially the woman who is getting dangerously under his skin as the lethal game crosses the Pacific to the remote and beautiful mountains of Japan, where the truth can be as seductive as it is deadly….

Fire and Ice :

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.
 

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.