Icy Number Three

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 someone 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...

Title: Ice Blue
Author: Anne Stuart
Published: 2007
Publisher: MIRA
Pages: 378
Genre: Romantic-Suspense

Committee member Takashi O’Brien’s story takes place during the third book in Anne Stuart’s Ice series called Ice Blue. He was a minor (but important) character in the second book of the series Cold as Ice and he is one of the best operatives who never lets anything or anyone get under his skin. Until American Summer Hawthorne that is!

All of the books in the series so far pretty much have the same plot line: tough as nails Committee operative has a mission that puts them in the path of some innocent female and finding that they can’t make themselves kill said female they begin to fall in love. All while escaping from and trying to stop bad guys who want global domination or global annihilation.

Even with such a well-worn plot line, each story and character manages to be unique and exciting in it’s own way (kind of like the Committee members themselves!) with the charged and sometimes dark ambience making it even more so. Somehow I felt like Summer had even more depth to her than all of the other women in the series although that still didn’t stop her from doing a few stupid things.

One of the things I like most about the Ice series is how the minor characters aren’t really all that minor at all. Mainly because they will star in their own book eventually and this gives you time to be introduced. Takashi’s wild cousin Reno is a minor but important character in the book and I just adore him! I can’t wait until he gets his own story. In the books, its said that he took his name and look from a video game character (I found out later that it was from Final Fantasy) so I just pictured him as Axel from Kingdom of Hearts. Turns out that they have a lot in common physically but I still like the Axel look best!

I discovered the Ice Series through several blog reviews but it wasn’t until J. Kaye wrote about Ice Blue and held a raffle for this book (which I won!), that I actually picked up all of the books. They are all incredible! Anne Stuart has an excerpt from the book available on her official site and naturally, Wikipedia has an article on the author.

The Ice Series:

• Black Ice
• Cold as Ice
• Ice Blue
• Ice Storm