Review: What a debut!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 1, 2014
This is the debut novel for Carolina Soto and the first book in the Ice series. The cover (shoes!) and blurb were winners for me and enticed me in to read.I must admit the first couple of chapters were hard going but this was getting to know the writing style of this new author and also the characters who were two headstrong individuals that at first were not portraying the warmth that is needed to grab the reader’s emotion. However, after a while I clicked into the psyche of Katherine and Dylan and it was all systems go!Katherine Bianchi is a society ‘princess’ used to getting what she wants and controlling her life from an early age. She doesn’t let many people into her inner circle besides her best friends Michelle and Kevin, who is also her housemate. Katherine doesn’t date and keeps men at an arm’s length, after all falling for somebody gave them control over her emotions and nobody took control of Ms Bianchi. She swears like a trouper, eats junk food like a big man and is a lover of trash TV, but being by herself at the weekend she can do what she wants.Dylan Berkeley, the blue eyed, sexy Forbes billionaire is an arrogant CEO of his empire. He doesn’t apologise for who or what he is and when he wants something he gets it, now questions asked or needed. Like Katherine he is hiding behind his own ice cover and nobody has ever been able to thaw it that is until a certain society beauty throws him off his feet.Kathryn agreed to go on a shopping trip outside of New York with Michelle and it is here they meet Mark and Spence with their friend/boss Dylan. Michelle and Mark hit it off straight away, whereas for Katherine and Dylan, he immediately wants her but she immediately hates him and his arrogance.The story then progresses with Dylan and Katherine ‘one step forward and two steps back’ dance of a relationship, however this is not a love story, they are not dating as they keep telling each other. Dylan’s intent is purely to own, Katherine’s is to purely deflect against this. The reader is taken along on this crazy journey but is privy to see from an outsider’s advantage of the ice from each side thawing.I totally loved both characters and I absolutely ‘got’ Katherine. I could see lots of my own traits in her that it was scary! It was brilliantly depicted in her standoffish ways, her controlling stance in everything she did. I could understand why people tried to avoid her! But those closest to her could see what a wonderful person she was and accepted her ways without question. Although Michelle did get frustrated of her reluctance to commit to any man. Dylan was an absolute dream of an alpha billionaire who at first seemed an over the top stalker that he seemed a little disconcerting. Some people would have had him incarcerated without a doubt! However he drew the reader in to his boorish ways and his twinkling eyes as underneath it all he was a hurting boy who missed his doting Mom and Dad and had never gotten over their deaths from when he was an impressionable teen. To see how he had changed in adulthood gave the reader a great insight.The ending was a bit of a shocker, as there I was on the road to happy endings when with a boom a corner was crash bang walloped straight between my eyes! So glad the next book is already out so I can whip right on to find out what will happen after that.A fabulous debut by Ms Soto who has produced a wonderful read. Four stars!