Now, I look at her current heroes and I think “wishy-washy." If you’re going to tell us your hero is mean, ruthless and super efficient, then by God make him mean, ruthless and super efficient. Then have the heroine change him. I think she did that with Bastien. Or pretty much did.

Oh, I definitely thought she did.

But with Peter, he starts out already hemming and hawing to me.

I can understand this viewpoint, but since in Black Ice Peter helped Bastien save Chloe’s life, it made sense to me that he would not want to kill Genevieve even in the beginning. He was not as ruthless as Bastien, but I looked at him as having a different personality.

Stuart always managed to redeem the men in her older books by the end without making them so vacillating to me.

That’s one of the things we differ on. In a lot of her dark older books, I didn’t feel that she redeemed the men at all, and I didn’t understand why any woman with a sense of self-preservation would hang around those guys. Trust me, I would not, no matter how great the sex was. With these Ice books, I can finally understand why her heroines fall in love with the heroes.

Whereas I enjoyed her earlier heroines far more than this latest lot. They were supposed to be weaker (especially in the historicals) and get stronger which they seemed to do. So it didn’t bother me when these women started out a bit clueless then grew. But with GS, she’s supposed to be so strong and intelligent and she seems to get weaker and more silly as the book progresses. I think I’m starting to like Clueless Chloe a bit better as she’s an example of what I mean. She starts out not knowing anything so I’m not surprised that she comes off as bewildered in the beginning. But she learns. I still see problems with her and Bastien but by gosh, I’m starting to like her better and better as I keep writing this response.

And you know me. Writing style doesn’t bug me as much, unless it’s on the level of “See Dick and Jane. Run, Spot, run.” ;)

Bring back the ruthless Committee!

The reason for that is that I think her heroes have become far more multidimensional than they used to be. She now delineates their vulnerabilities as well as their darkness. In some of her earlier books I couldn’t understand why the heroines fell in love with the heroes, I just don’t have that response to the Ice books. Also, Stuart’s writing style has become more compact and spare, which lends it a lot of power, the ultimate result being that the books mesmerize me in a way that her earlier ones did not.

By the way, the reasons for the softening of the Committee’s stance were given at the end of Black Ice. Isobel Lambert, trying to recruit Bastien back, told him that under her leadership the Committee would be very different. But like you, I liked the original Committee better.

But considering how smart this lawyer is supposed to be, she sometimes needed a clue about who was trying to save her and who just wanted to “do" her ass before killing her.

God, YES!

I found myself wanting something heinous to happen to GS. Surely that’s not a good thing?