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Overview
Never have the stakes been higher. Never have two people faced greater risks or grappled with deeper desire. Never has Cherry Adair–award-winning author of Hot Ice–burned the pages with so much blazing action and blistering passion.Professional art restorer Emily Greene is in no mood to see the devil-may-care Max Aries. She hasn’t forgotten–or forgiven–the way Max dropped into her life a year ago, stole her heart, then vanished without a word. Max hadn’t kept in touch with his father, Daniel, either. Daniel Aries had been a master of art restoration and reproduction, and not only Emily’s longtime mentor, but a trusted friend. His unexpected suicide devastates her. And when the prodigal playboy Max returns, her welcome is less than warm–even though his timely arrival in her bedroom saves her from a lethal intruder. But her fury gives way to fear when Max reveals that his father’s death was actually murder . . . and that Emily’s life is now in danger. Like it or not, to stay alive, Emily must put herself in Max’s hands. And once upon a time, that wasn’t such a bad place to be.
But what killer would target professional restorers of Renaissance artworks? Max suspects that a pencil sketch found in his father’s studio, inscribed with a cryptic code, may hold the key. His hunch is confirmed when intel from his control at the counterterrorist organization T-FLAC reveals that the Black Rose terror cell is involved–a chilling revelation that elevates the threat level almost as high as the tension that’s bristling between Max and Emily. Max isn’t about to take his eyes off Emily–though only partly for professional reasons–and even Emily’s rage over Max’s take-charge attitude can’t compare to her anger at herself for so long denying the truer, deeper feelings she has for him. As they crisscross Europe, piecing together the shocking clues to an insidious international plot, dodging increasingly lethal traps, and passionately making up for too much lost time, they realize that–in more ways than one–they can’t live without each other. With no chance of turning back, Max and Emily must put their lives on the line, put their true feelings to the test . . . and get ready to take the heat.
From the Hardcover edition.
Synopsis
Never have the stakes been higher. Never have two people faced greater risks or grappled with deeper desire. Never has Cherry Adair–award-winning author of Hot Ice–burned the pages with so much blazing action and blistering passion.
Professional art restorer Emily Greene is in no mood to see the devil-may-care Max Aries. She hasn’t forgotten–or forgiven–the way Max dropped into her life a year ago, stole her heart, then vanished without a word. Max hadn’t kept in touch with his father, Daniel, either. Daniel Aries had been a master of art restoration and reproduction, and not only Emily’s longtime mentor, but a trusted friend. His unexpected suicide devastates her. And when the prodigal playboy Max returns, her welcome is less than warm–even though his timely arrival in her bedroom saves her from a lethal intruder. But her fury gives way to fear when Max reveals that his father’s death was actually murder . . . and that Emily’s life is now in danger. Like it or not, to stay alive, Emily must put herself in Max’s hands. And once upon a time, that wasn’t such a bad place to be.
But what killer would target professional restorers of Renaissance artworks? Max suspects that a pencil sketch found in his father’s studio, inscribed with a cryptic code, may hold the key. His hunch is confirmed when intel from his control at the counterterrorist organization T-FLAC reveals that the Black Rose terror cell is involved–a chilling revelation that elevates the threat level almost as high as the tension that’s bristling between Max and Emily. Max isn’t about to take his eyes offEmily–though only partly for professional reasons–and even Emily’s rage over Max’s take-charge attitude can’t compare to her anger at herself for so long denying the truer, deeper feelings she has for him. As they crisscross Europe, piecing together the shocking clues to an insidious international plot, dodging increasingly lethal traps, and passionately making up for too much lost time, they realize that–in more ways than one–they can’t live without each other. With no chance of turning back, Max and Emily must put their lives on the line, put their true feelings to the test . . . and get ready to take the heat.
From the Hardcover edition.
Publishers Weekly
Adair delivers a steamy fusion of romance and heart-stopping suspense with this second T-FLAC (Terrorist Force Logistic Assault Command) thriller (after 2005's Hot Ice). Max Aries prides himself on being a womanizer, but his earlier brief, tantalizing affair with talented art restorer Emily Greene has unforeseen repercussions when she contacts him about his father's apparent suicide in Florence, Italy. Daniel Aries, Emily's mentor in art restoration, had been hired to copy masterpieces for a reclusive Denver philanthropist with Emily's aid. When Max slips into Emily's Florence apartment, he finds her battling an intruder who leaves behind a suspicious vial. The resulting investigation by T-FLAC, a privately funded group, grows to include Daniel's death and a host of subsequent murders and explosions. As Max, Emily and the T-FLAC crew tangle with the evildoers, Max and Emily's torrid romance almost, but not quite, upstages counterterrorist schemes to save a masterpiece beloved by art lovers and religious pilgrims alike. (July)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationEditorials
Publishers Weekly
Adair delivers a steamy fusion of romance and heart-stopping suspense with this second T-FLAC (Terrorist Force Logistic Assault Command) thriller (after 2005's Hot Ice). Max Aries prides himself on being a womanizer, but his earlier brief, tantalizing affair with talented art restorer Emily Greene has unforeseen repercussions when she contacts him about his father's apparent suicide in Florence, Italy. Daniel Aries, Emily's mentor in art restoration, had been hired to copy masterpieces for a reclusive Denver philanthropist with Emily's aid. When Max slips into Emily's Florence apartment, he finds her battling an intruder who leaves behind a suspicious vial. The resulting investigation by T-FLAC, a privately funded group, grows to include Daniel's death and a host of subsequent murders and explosions. As Max, Emily and the T-FLAC crew tangle with the evildoers, Max and Emily's torrid romance almost, but not quite, upstages counterterrorist schemes to save a masterpiece beloved by art lovers and religious pilgrims alike. (July)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationLibrary Journal
Responding to Renaissance-art restorer Emily Greene's urgent calls concerning his father's apparent suicide, T-FLAC agent Max Aries arrives in her Florence, Italy, home to find a hired gun temporarily out cold-courtesy of Emily-and he faces a growing conviction that his father's death was murder. Now in danger, Emily is forced to depend on Max for survival. Yet while she may trust him with her life, she has no intention of trusting him-again-with her heart. Murder, danger, and violence are the order of the day in Adair's latest heart-stopping adventure of international intrigue and terrorist plots that sweeps across Europe. The latest of her spicy tales about the hard-edged counterterrorist men of T-FLAC and the women who love them. Adair (Hot Ice) lives in Washington State. [See Prepub Alert, LJ3/1/07.]
—Kristin Ramsdell
Emily Greene is upset enough when her mentor dies. Then she discovers that he may have been murdered. Another in the author's successful series about the private antiterrorist organization T-FLAC. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
Pheromones-of the hate him, love him, hate him, live happily ever after variety-cloud the heroine's judgment in Adair's (Edge of Darkness, 2006, etc.) latest romantic suspense novel. Emily Greene has it all-wealth, flawless beauty, a palazzo in Florence, an investment banker who loves her and a career as a respected painter who specializes in restoring and reproducing Old Master paintings. The only thorn in her side is the memory of Max Aries, the estranged son of her friend and mentor, Daniel. A year ago, after four days of erotic bliss, Max disappeared without a word. Now Daniel is dead and Max is back in Emily's palazzo on the heels of an intruder who is a member of the Black Rose terrorist group. As Max protects Emily from one attack after another, she discovers he's not the photojournalist he claimed to be, but a ruthless counterterrorist operative for a secret organization, T-FLAC. Emily and Max's efforts to resist each other-even after they have succumbed to the powerful attraction between them-is drawn out beyond credibility, as are the predictable sex scenes where body parts spring to attention on cue and moaning is raised to a language all its own. Adair shortchanges Emily's depiction as a sophisticated long-term expatriate by defining her through cliched American status symbols (Coach, Maserati, Jimmy Choo) and showing her adding powdered milk to her coffee-heresy in Italy. However, the terrorist plot that has put Emily in danger is compellingly interwoven with art-world intrigue. As one religious site after another is bombed and a mysterious toxin kills art restorers around the world, Max discovers that Emily's reproductions of priceless masterpieces point to the killers-whohave infiltrated T-FLAC to murder Emily as well. When Emily is strapped to a ticking bomb, she and Max finally acknowledge that their physical magnetism is matched by an enduring love. A predictable love story.