This isn’t a review. It’s more like “How the eff did I miss this one?” post. I thought that I had read every Linda Howard book. I thought I had re-read every Linda Howard book except Heart of Fire at least twice. Imagine my surprise yesterday when I realized that I had never read White Out. Like, ever.

To me, White Out epitomizes why Linda Howard is so amazing. This book (I guess technically it’s a novella) is so short that it shouldn’t pack such a punch. Yet it does. The first love scene is scorching hot. LH just has this ability to bring both characters to their most elemental state.

At first he had been too cold, and the situation too urgent, for her to notice, but for some moments now she had been growing more aware of the sensations produced by his naked body against hers. He was a tall, well-built man, with a nice hairy chest and even nicer hard muscles. Good-looking too, now that his features weren’t pinched and blue. Her nipples tingled from the rasping of his chest hair, and Hope knew it was time to get up. She pushed gently against him, trying to rise, but he groaned and tightened his arms, shivering again, so she let herself relax.

The shaking wasn’t as violent this time. He swallowed and licked his lips, and his eyes flickered open again, just for a second. Then he seemed to doze, and because he was warm now, Hope wasn’t alarmed. Her own muscles quivered from exhaustion. She closed her eyes too, resting for just a minute.

Time drifted. Half-asleep, warm, boneless from fatigue, she didn’t know if a minute had passed, or an hour. His hand moved down to her bottom, curving over one rounded cheek. He shifted beneath her, muscled legs moving, sliding between her thighs. His engorged penis prodded at her exposed opening.

It happened so fast that he was inside her before she was fully awake. He rolled, pinning her beneath him on the blanket, mounting her, squeezing his penis into her and driving it deep with quick, hard shoves. After five years of chastity the penetration hurt, stretching her around his thick shaft, but it felt good too. Disoriented, unbelievably aroused, Hope arched her hips and felt him prod deeply, nudging her cervix. She cried out, gasping, her neck arching back as the sensation rocketed through her nerve endings.

There was no finesse, no lingering arousal. He simply began thrusting, his heavy weight holding her down, and she wound her arms and legs around him and met his thrusts with mindless ones of her own. In the mellow light of fire and lamp she saw his face, his eyes open now, very blue and still dazed, his expression set in the hardness of physical absorption. He was operating solely on animal instinct, his body aroused by the closeness of hers, by the naked intimacy that had been necessary to save his life. He was aware only of being warm and alive, and of her bare body in his arms.

How does she manage to write it so it doesn’t seem like Hope is a sex hungry slut? This is sex between two complete strangers, one of them almost unconcious, yet it’s amazingly sweet at the same time.

That is why Linda Howard continues to amaze me, even though I’ve read every single one of her books. At least I can now say that with confidence.