Young (Semi) Professional

I'm having a hard time deciding on what to rate this. I'm fluctuating from two stars to four, so I'll just average it out and be done with it.

The plot really wasn't that bad, though you'd figure all of these elite arms dealers would be able to secure a translator that probably wouldn't have caused such a fuss. Perhaps an elderly gentleman instead of a twenty-something year old woman? Just a thought for the next time a super secret meeting occurs or...even better, everyone grab some iPhones. Surely there's an app for that.

Chloe was...nice. Honestly, I say that because she never stirred any strong emotions within me as a reader. The girl also needs to learn to stay put if an experienced killer strongly recommends it. Now is not the time to question authority when you've just had some major crap go down. Should have saved all that rebellion for your experimental college years.

The relationship between Chloe and Bastien developed at a decent pace, but at the end of the book, all I felt they truly had in common was the ability to join forces and have some awesome sex. Like an adult, non-incestuous version of the Wonder Twin powers. I'd also consider myself open-minded in the ways of relationships, though I think the age difference between the two of them was a bad idea. About a decade is the gap and add in Bastien's unconventional, ass-kicking lifestyle, I have a hard time seeing them "making it work." If an epilogue were to happen, I can see Chloe suggesting couple's therapy (because you know it's bound to happen) and Bastien choosing instead to methodically clean his guns in front of her like my father did when he needed some "me" time. Maybe in the second book within the Ice series, we'll get a glimpse or mention of them to see how that whole...thing is working out for them.

Apart from the story/characters, I unfortunately have noticed that Anne Stuart has a lot of word repetition. Bastien's physical appearance was constantly being described as beatific and at the beginning of the book, Chloe did everything "brightly." Now I probably wouldn't have noticed it if she had used the word a second time maybe seventy pages or so later. But, and this is just a rough estimate since I'm too lazy to go back and count, she used the same adjectives and adverbs within fifteen pages or less of each other. I know that sometimes a word just describes something so perfectly, but maybe Shift+F7 in Word might not have been a bad idea.