Fire and Ice

Title: Fire and Ice

Author: Julie Garwood

Date Finished: April 12, 2009

Personal Book Count: 29 out of 100

Rating: 4 out of 5

Genre/ Subject: Romantic Suspense

First Line: Today we celebrate.

Summery: taken from the dust jacket-

“Fresh from her incredible smash-hit historical romance Shadow Music, New York Times bestselling author Julie Garwood returns to contemporary romantic suspense with this wonderfully sexy, exhilarating blockbuster. Filled with sizzling passion and breathless adventure, Fire and Ice features a feisty heroine whom Garwood's devoted readers already know and love from her hugely popular novel Murder List.

Sophie Rose, a tough and determined newspaper reporter, is the daughter of Bobby Rose, a suave, charming, and handsome gentleman who also happens to be a notorious big-time thief sought by every law-enforcement agency in the country. When the major Chicago daily where she works insists she write an expose about her roguish father, Sophie refuses, quits her job, and goes to work at a small newspaper. Far from her onetime high-powered crime beat, she now covers local personalities such as the quirky winner of several area 5K runs whose trademark is goofy red socks.

Those red socks-with Sophie's business card neatly tucked inside-are practically all that's found after runner William Harrington is killed near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, seemingly the victim of a brutal death by polar bear. The Alaska cops want to know why Harrington carried Sophie's card. With an unerring nose for a good story, she heads north.

What Sophie doesn't realize is that on her journey from Chicago to Prudhoe Bay, danger follows in her wake. After one attempt on her life, she's been assigned brash but sexy Jack MacAlister as a bodyguard by the cautious FBI. Amid great peril and deadly intrigue in the unforgiving Alaskan terrain, she and Jack form an uneasy alliance sparked with sensual attraction. But they will soon be fighting more than their growing passion for each other. Powerful forces will stop at nothing to prevent the exposure of the sinister conspiracy Sophie and Jack are about to uncover.

Captivating mystery, unyielding desire, unrelenting action in a setting both beautiful and lethal-Julie Garwood weaves these thrilling elements into a heat-generating masterpiece of romantic suspense.”

Why did I pick this book? : Garwood became on of my favourite romantic suspense authors (I haven’t tried her historical stuff) through the Buchannan series, and when this on came out, I had to read it.

Review: I have read all of the Buchannan series, and I kind of like the idea of this spin off. Sophie is one of the friends of the girl who marries one of the Buchannan brothers in Murder List . I like that we are revisiting, and getting to know some of the characters from that book a little better, as we as introducing a few new ones. Garwood has a gift for inventing characters that are unique and memorable. Their quirks make for a fun read. Also, this one had an appropriate twist at the end, and so had great payoff for me. I’m glad I read this one in spring and not winter, because just reading about the parts that took place in Alaska made me cold. I may have had frost bite if it had been winter. Garwood tends to be a light read, but there is always enough exciting moments, and enough romance to make it worth the read, and this one lived up to expectations. =D

Agree? Disagree? Recommendations? Any insights, suggestions, or comments on the book or format, or blog at all are most welcome. If you have read this and/ or review it yourself, please let me know. Can you think of any books like this? Give me a recommendation! =D