The last time Maggie Campbell and Alexandra Blake worked together, they both received two-week suspensions. This time… it’s worse. 

Ice begins when a boy is kidnapped from a London park and Detective Inspectors Alex Blake and Maggie Campbell are brought together to work on the case. While their goal is the same, their work ethics are not. Intelligent, perceptive and at times disobedient, Alex Blake does what she believes it takes to do her job. Maggie Campbell has a slightly different approach. She believes that rule books were written for a reason.

Unexpectedly, their dynamics mesh, but when her feelings for Alex become stronger than she wants to admit, Maggie provokes the worst in Alex to ensure that they will never be partners again. 

Three years later, fate brings them together again. Their assignment is simple, but a plane crash gets in their way. Now, in the middle of a blizzard, they have to try to survive… and fight the feelings that refuse to die.

REVIEW
Lyn Gardner, if you ever stumble across this blog, I have one question for you. When the HECK are you going to release another novel?!?!?! No pressure or anything, of course. 🙂 Your books are really a source of joy and uh… warmth, especially on cold winter nights. Readers, if you’ve read any of her novels, you know what I mean. *Nudge Nudge*

Almost immediately after I finished Give Me A Reason, I purchased Ice. True to Gardner’s style in Give Me A Reason, there is an intensity to the storyline and the characterizations. It’s not often that you come across characters that burn as hot as Maggie and Alex do in this story. Both are strong-willed and hard-headed and it adds fuel to the fire of their romance.

Sometimes, it takes a catastrophic situation to bend the will of a stubborn mind to accept and understand what the heart truly wants. Alex and Maggie are thrust into a circumstance that forces them to examine their feelings for each other. Trapped in a cabin, there’s no place to escape for those two. To add another level of complication to those feelings, Maggie has firmly identified herself as a person of the straight-persuasion, whereas Alex is definitely not of that variety nor wants to tangle herself with someone who is not out of the closet. Oh, feelings. Lots and lots of feelings. How the characters navigate through that landscape and find their way to each other makes this an immensely satisfying read. You won’t be disappointed, that’s for sure.

Gardner certainly isn’t shy when she’s writing the intimate scenes between her characters in her novels. Has anyone ever played the fortune-cookie game? You get a fortune, and you add “in bed” to the end of it. For example, I might get a fortune that says, “Good things will come to you”. Just add “in bed” to the end of that, which makes the fortune read “Good things will come to you in bed”. I would suggest playing that game with this novel. It’s a guaranteed good time.

SOUNDTRACK
1. Duffy – Mercy
2. Cody Fry – Underground
3. Aquilo – Better Off Without You
4. Good Old War – Tell Me What You Want From Me
5. Alicia Keys – I Need You
6. Canopy Climbers – Far
7. Corinne Bailey Rae – Is This Love
8. James Morrison – You Give Me Something
9. Imaginary Future – Love is Beginning
10. Amel Larrieux – Make Me Whole

CHEERS!
This book would be best read with a….

GLENMORANGIE NECTAR D’OR – 12 YEARS