🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷 #Review of Whiteout by Adriana Anders

Title: Whiteout
Series: Survival Instincts #1
Author: Adriana Anders
Format: Kindle Edition, 512 pages
Published: January 28th 2020 by Sourcebooks Casablanca
ISBN: ASIN B07NVSGP8F
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N
Reviewer: Linda
Source: NetGalley
Rating: 5 out of 5 Wine Glasses

Angel Smith is finally ready to leave Antarctica for a second chance at life. But on what was meant to be her last day, the remote research station she's been calling home is attacked. Hunted and scared, she and irritatingly gorgeous glaciologist Ford Cooper barely make it out with their lives...only to realize that in a place this remote, there's nowhere left to run.

Isolated with no power, no way to contact the outside world, and a madman at their heels, Angel and Ford must fight to survive in the most inhospitable—and beautiful—place on earth. But what starts as a partnership born of necessity quickly turns into an urgent connection that burns bright and hot. They both know there is little chance of making it out alive, and yet they are determined to survive against the odds—and possibly, the world.

Linda's Thoughts:
‘The Ice Man… cometh.”

Whiteout is an action-packed, steamy arctic adventure by Andriana Anders! It’s the first full novel in the author’s new Survival Instincts series. I was hooked from the start. The subzero temperatures would turn me off from ever physically going to Antarctica, but the author transported me there with her words. I could feel the frostbitten fingers, the welcome heat generated as a hot romance sizzled within sleeping bags and the desperation at our hero and heroine’s dire straits. This is the story of Chef Angel Smith and Doctor Ford “Ice Man” Cooper.

Ford is a research scientist at the Burke-Ruhe Research Station at the South Pole. He’s a surly reclusive and a permanent resident at the Station. He’s not a conversationalist and avoids emotions like the plague. He finds the isolation on the ice to be a coping mechanism as he struggles with the chaos of being around his fellow humans. While out checking on his experiments, Ford spots blood. He rushes back to the Station to find it completely deserted except for the bubbly woman he has successfully-until-now kept his distance from since she arrived.

Angel is Ford’s complete opposite. She’s bright, happy, smart, innovative and ready to say sayonara to the cold and isolation of the Station. She took this temporary cooking assignment to give herself time to recover from an abusive ex and the tragic loss of her dreams. Her stint at the Station is within hours of being done when she comes upon a murder-in-process. She barely escapes with her life but is left locked within an icy grave. Thank goodness for Ford who releases her. However, it’s a given that the killers will be back.

Ford and Angel are left with no choice but to trek across miles of ice in a chilling race to save themselves and humanity. It’s do or die as they run for their lives from villains that give the word ‘mad” a new, more chilling, meaning.

Following please find a few of my favorite lines from Whiteout:

We’re heading out into the most dangerous place on earth with killers after us?”

“Yeah.” He couldn’t help a grim smirk. “Better hit the road.”
--- 
Suddenly, he understood why he couldn’t have her back then, or now. Or ever.

He was a starving man and she was an oasis, a hallucination, a single sparkling drop of water in his desiccated world. And the problem with giving in, drinking that water, getting just one little taste, was that he’d know exactly what he’d been missing. And he’d never, ever be able to go back.
--- 
There was a reason he’d avoided Angel Smith. Already, she’d started seeping under his skin, making him feel things he preferred not to think about.

And it felt so good it scared him.

Whiteout is a slow-burning, searing-hot romance with strong characters and fascinating, often witty, dialogue set in a vast, frigid, lethal but beautiful emptiness. The sexual tension is off-the-charts and paired with thrilling twists and turns galore. I found myself on the edge constantly and hoping for a miracle. The author further escalates the tension as each chapter headlines how far they are from their destination and their dwindling food supply.

Don’t be worried that you’ll combust from the intense nature of this story. The author includes plenty of humorous respites to break the stress. I laughed out loud when Angel commented that pulling their butter was a terrible exercise program. And I salivated as Angel talked about food. Mmmm. That said, I found every second of the torture all worth it for the well-deserved happy ending at the conclusion of this mega-harrowing adventure.

Immediately after finishing this tale, and not ready to leave Whiteout’s addictive spell, I found and inhaled the preceding novella, Deep Blue. Deep Blue features Ford’s brother, ex-Navy seal Eric Cooper, who is a supporting character in Whiteout. Reading Deep Blue was fortuitous indeed as it answered some lingering questions I had after reading Whiteout.

Go fix yourself a warm drink, wrap yourself in a blanket and read this book! I’m so glad I did and can’t wait to read more from this author soon!



Suggested Reading Order: 
#0.5 Deep Blue a novella (Book 0.5)  Found in the Turn the Tide anthology
#1 Whiteout (Book #1)