As for the attraction between Bastien and Chloe, I actually preferred that it developed subtly rather than the more usual “bolt of lightning/love (lust) at first sight” plot device. I liked the fact that Bastien initially went to Chloe's aid reluctantly and predominantly because she had awakened a spark of human compassion in his soul, as opposed to him rescuing her because he thought that she was a hottie. I think that Chloe *did* complement Bastien in that she filled in the gaps in his soul. The fact that Bastien was so morally adrift and dissatisfied with his current situation, combined with the healthy dose of self-awareness on the part of both Bastien and Chloe, made me much more accepting of the obvious differences between their characters and life experiences.

Well said, Elle. You make a good point that a “bolt of lightning” attraction would have made the moral issues at stake in Bastien’s decision whether or not to rescue Chloe more murky. It is more interesting, I think, that he’s not immediately hugely attracted but rather that it’s the question of Chloe’s innocence or guilt that obsesses him because he’s nearly reached his limit and doesn’t know if he can stand to see another innocent life taken in the name of saving the world.

I think in Ludlum's original books Marie (who's Canadian in the books) and Jason/David get married and have kids. But I've read so many thrillers over the years and seen so many movie adaptations that I can't be 100% certain.

Yes, Marie survives in the Ludlum trilogy, although it is a near thing (IIRC) in all three. Interestingly enough, Marie in the book is a Canadian economist who has a PhD, I believe. I always wondered why “Damon movie” Marie was an unemployed, bohemian German chick.

But ultimately, I can delight in a hero only as far as I can admire the heroine. So in this case, my enjoyment of Bastien's journey was marred by my frustration with Chloe. I would still recommend this book, with the caveat that readers who go into a homicidal rage at the sight of a weak heroine approach with caution.

Well, I usually loathe a weak heroine, particularly when weakness, cluelessness and naivety are held up as a standard of womanly virtue, but I actually liked Chloe. She reminded me of one of the heroines of Mary Stewart's old gothic romances-everyday women caught up in extraordinary situations. Her reactions were not always brilliant and well thought out, but she was really out of her depth with Bastien, the Committee and the arms dealers and she was well aware of this fact.

As for the attraction between Bastien and Chloe, I actually preferred that it developed subtly rather than the more usual “bolt of lightning/love (lust) at first sight” plot device. I liked the fact that Bastien initially went to Chloe's aid reluctantly and predominantly because she had awakened a spark of human compassion in his soul, as opposed to him rescuing her because he thought that she was a hottie. I think that Chloe *did* complement Bastien in that she filled in the gaps in his soul. The fact that Bastien was so morally adrift and dissatisfied with his current situation, combined with the healthy dose of self-awareness on the part of both Bastien and Chloe, made me much more accepting of the obvious differences between their characters and life experiences.

Susan, that is so beautifully put, archtypes rather than individuals. I think when Janine and I were having a furious (as in speed, rather than emotion) back-and-forth about it over IM, I said something like I felt Bastien was more in love with the idea of Chloe than the real person-and vice versa. I just didn't know whether a more prolonged acquaintance wouldn't make either of them disillusioned/dissatisfied.

I feel that Chloe was an individual as well as an archetype; Stuart made her distinctive enough for me, especially in making me feel Chloe’s emotional vulnerablility to Bastien and her contradictory mix of repulsion and attraction, fear of him and appreciation of his protectiveness, that she became a full-fledged person to me.

As for falling in love with the idea of a person, I think a lot of people who do that stay in love for a good long time. In fact I would argue that most of us are attracted based on what another person represents to us in ourselves, be it the aspects of our personality that we admire most, or the aspects that are underdeveloped in ourselves and that we want to have more of. The reasons we feel romantic love are just as much about the lover as about the loved one, if you ask me, and a lot of times where romances fall down for me is when they fail to show this: how the lovers either share commonalities or complement each other.

For me, Stuart really made this work, and in the case of Bastien’s attraction to Chloe, I feel that he was attracted to her tenderness and her heart, which were the aspects of himself that he had denied and repressed. I don’t feel that these parts of Chloe are going to go away, so I also don’t feel that Bastien’s attraction to her will change.

There’s a great line in Black Ice toward the end, after the final love scene, which since I can’t find my copy of the book I will have to paraphrase. It’s a line in which Bastien thinks that Chloe is innocent deep in her soul in a way that has nothing to do with the sex they just had. I love that line because where as in so many romances the hero’s cynicism is cured by what Jennifer Crusie calls the glittery hooha, here it’s not about that kind of short cut for heart.

Chloe’s compassion feels very real to me, and I think Bastien is drawn to that because he’s tired of acting ruthless and pretending to be ruthless.

There is also a great line in the love scene, which I think goes like this “and there was nothing between them but love, neither pure nor simple, but love it was.” I love that line too, because it’s so true, Bastien’s motives for loving Chloe aren’t pure, and neither are Chloe’s for loving Bastien, but that is I think, always the case with love — it’s just that few books acknowledge it.

Love is always, I think, a mix of selflessness and selfishness, love for the person and love for the idea of the person, and in many cases, I actually think it’s true that where love for what the person represents or symbolizes is stronger, then love is most intense, most romantic, and most long lasting, because without that streak of idealizing the other a little bit, affection becomes more mild.

The relationship in Black Ice is “neither pure nor simple” and the complications there, the characters shifting perceptions of each other, their mixed motives for their feelings, are actually a huge part of why I love this book.

I think in Ludlum’s original books Marie (who’s Canadian in the books) and Jason/David get married and have kids. But I’ve read so many thrillers over the years and seen so many movie adaptations that I can’t be 100% certain.

It's been a few years since I've read the books-and I have a tendency to mix up the books with the Chamberlain movie and the Damon movies-but didn't Bourne's wife survive?

Ann, I haven’t read the books. But Bourne’s girlfriend from The Bourne Identity movie dies in the first ten minutes of The Bourne Supremacy. I was totally devastated.

My issue with characters like Chloe (and it is usually the heroine, although occasionally the hero) is that they represent archtypes rather than individuals. I need to believe in a 3-dimensional, flesh-and-blood heroine and understand what she brings to the relationship (other than generic innocence or whatever) if I'm to believe in the HEA.

Susan, that is so beautifully put, archtypes rather than individuals. I think when Janine and I were having a furious (as in speed, rather than emotion) back-and-forth about it over IM, I said something like I felt Bastien was more in love with the idea of Chloe than the real person–and vice versa. I just didn’t know whether a more prolonged acquaintance wouldn’t make either of them disillusioned/dissatisfied.

Too often in situations like this, my basic reaction is “what does he see in her?”

I did a post a while back about this–not Black Ice–but unequal, male-dominant pairings in general. I believe I even asked that precise question.

the fact that it comes “this close” may actually mean more dissatisfaction, as odd as that may sound.

I don’t think that sounds odd at all. It’s precisely because of my overall emotional investment in the book–which I wouldn’t have had the book been mediocre, wouldn’t have gone past 30 pages then–is so big that my frustration is just as big. Like how we feel more let down when we see someone with huge potential not achieving commensurate success, more so than if that someone had been only average.

And if Jason Bourne couldn't keep his girlfriend alive, well, what hope do the rest of us have?

It’s been a few years since I’ve read the books–and I have a tendency to mix up the books with the Chamberlain movie and the Damon movies–but didn’t Bourne’s wife survive?

Thank you, Sherry for your views on Chloe! They are exactly what I thought when I finished the book. And if you don't like this type of heroine, I'd recommend not reading any more of this series 'cause it's full of them. After reading 2 more Ice books, I've actually come to almost like Chloe. And that's saying something!

LOL, Jayne. I may have said this to you and Sherry before, I don’t recall, but I do think that Chloe grows and becomes psychologically stronger as the book progresses. IMO she learns to hold her own more with Bastien and his enemies, to be less afraid by them. She’s not intimidated at the end the way she is in the beginning.

I would add though, that Chloe is a character who grew on me in my multiple readings. I didn’t start out loving her the way I did Bastien. There are some unflattering descriptions of her early in the book as being rabbit like, which are given in Bastien’s POV and I think are meant to reflect his own sense of guilt over taking innocent lives. But in my first reading, I took them at first value and not as a reflection of Bastien’s messed-up state, and they didn’t help me love Chloe.

It was really in the second half of the book that I started liking and even admiring Chloe.
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I thought she didn’t do so badly with Maureen, and I liked especially came to like her in the hotel scene as they were getting ready to join the cartel again, and she was trying to figure out her growing feelings for Bastien and how much she should let them show. There was a very healthy sense of self-preservation there, mixed up with a kind of nobility of spirit in wanting to be protected on the one hand, and not wanting to endanger his life in the process, on the other.

I didn’t pay that much attention to the dimensions of Chloe’s character in my first reading (It is always easier for me to absorb more of a book if I read it more than once). But I’m also not the kind of reader who has to love both hero and heroine to love a book. That certainly makes it better for me, but it’s not required, so I loved Black Ice enough to reread it right away even without loving Chloe in my first read.

I will also add, though, that I’m not the kind of reader who has to admire every hero or heroine in order to enjoy a romance. In fact, some of my favorite romances have characters who are less admirable in my eyes.

I think this book would have worked better as an action movie where the romance takes a distant second place. Or, alternately-’because my heart is black and poison flows through my veins-’as a straight action/suspense novel in which either Bastien or Chloe dies. There would be great poignancy in Chloe's death, as it is shown to Bastien the true cost of his life of massive amorality, not in that he cannot repent, but that the innocent ones he subsequently touches must pay the price for him. And if Bastien had died, then it would be sort of like Titanic. Chloe would go on and live a normal life, but she would always remember the mysterious, charismatic stranger who gave up his life for her and saved his own soul in the process.

I thought this was an interesting comment. For me it was the mixture of romance and suspense that made Black Ice so great, so I wouldn’t want that to change.

And I think that Chloe dying would have been a very depressing ending, because then (even if it wasn’t shown in the book) we’d know that Bastien would be dead very soon after that. His deathwish was such that he needed her to survive in order to want to live himself. A book where both protagonists are dead or about to die would not work for me (I was never a fan of Romeo and Juliet, either).

However, Bastien dying to ensure Chloe’s survival, a la “Titanic”, could have been a good and powerful ending too. Given how much I love Black Ice exactly as it is, I don’t really want it to change, but a “Titanic” ending is interesting to think about and could have been very satisfying to read as well.

I find Black Ice an interest case for me. It is so good in many ways, and so frustrating in other ways. It’s that frustration, more than anything else, that drives my review, because I’m not normally the type who will voluntarily sit down and spent hours writing about a B- book. And before that Janine and I spent probably hours debating it. Every time I think about it it’s always if only Chloe did something different in this scene, or that, or is different in subtle but significant ways, how much more I would have loved it.

It is definitely a book that gets to you in one way or the other. That’s why the recommendation, despite my hair-pulling at times.

First, Laura Kinsale is probably my favorite romance author! Although I didn’t lurrve Shadowheart the way I do some of her other books, I still enjoyed it and would recommend it. There are a few (a very few) authors who are only in competition with themselves as far as I am concerned, and Laura Kinsale is one of them.

Secondly, regarding Black Ice and the spoiler mentioned in Sherry’s review, it was not a head-banging moment for me because:
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I saw Chloe’s actions there as being directly related to Bastien’s deathwish and her fear for his life. Given what happened in the previous confrontation, and that Bastien likely would have died then if not for Chloe’s refusal to leave the room, it made sense to me that she would insist on intervening again, even at the cost of her own life. They each wanted to save each other, even if the price was their own death, and I found that romantic.