ARC Review: Andre by Sybil Bartel (The Uncompromising Series)

**Sybil Bartel**

**BIO**

Sybil Bartel grew up in Northern California with her head in a book and her feet in the sand. She dreamt of becoming a painter but the heady scent of libraries with their shelves full of books drew her into the world of storytelling. She loves the New Adult genre, but any story about a love so desperately wrong and impossibly beautiful makes her swoon.

Sybil now resides in Southern Florida and while she doesn’t get to read as much as she likes, she still buries her toes in the sand. If she isn’t writing or fighting to contain the banana plantation in her backyard, you can find her spending time with her handsomely tattooed husband, her brilliantly practical son and a mischievous miniature boxer…

But Seriously?

Here are ten things you probably really want to know about Sybil.

She grew up a faculty brat. She can swear like a sailor. She loves men in uniform. She hates being told what to do. She can do your taxes (but don’t ask). The Bird Market in Hong Kong freaks her out. Her favorite word is desperate…or dirty, or both—she can’t decide. She has a thing for muscle cars. But never reply on her for driving directions, ever. And she has a new book boyfriend every week—don’t tell her husband.

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Title: Andre

          (The Uncompromising Series)

Author: Sybil Bartel

Release Date: October 16, 2017 (ARC)

Publisher: Amazon Digital

Category: Military Contemporary Romance

Type: Digital

Blurb:

André

The Marines trained me to set my sights and wait for the shot. For eight years, I guarded my brothers and defended my country. Now I protect my clients. My personal security firm is the best in the business because I leave nothing to chance… until a dark-haired, hazel-eyed spitfire crosses my path.

She and her sexy-as-hell striptease were supposed to be a one-night distraction. But too late I noticed the branding on her back and my blood ran cold. This woman wasn’t a distraction—she was a death sentence.

Knowing who she was left me no choice. I took her on as my client. But running from her past wasn’t an option.

The Marines didn’t train me to retreat. They taught me to engage.

One shot. One kill.

*ANDRE is the third standalone book in the Uncompromising Series.*
The Uncompromising Series
TALON
NEIL
ANDRE
BENNETT
CALLAN

By reading any further, you are stating that you are at least 18 years of age.

If you are under the age of 18, please exit this site.

Favorite Line(s):

Oh my God , that smile. “Depends.” I doubted everything and everyone. “You gonna bring it?”

Throaty and deep, his chuckle slid across my skin like a rough caress. “No.” His smile dropped. “I’m gonna wreck it.”  ~  Kendall & Andre

Dialogue Highlight:

STANDING OUTSIDE MY OWN DAMN place, not even one foot in the door of my penthouse, and she was already fucking with my head. Mother of God, this woman. Sighing, I punched in my security code, then pushed open my steel-reinforced front door.

I didn’t know what hit me first, her scent or the sight of her standing in front of the wall of windows overlooking a Miami Beach sunrise.

“He returns.” In a little silk number barely covering her ass, Kendall didn’t even spare me a glance as she dished out her own special brand of charm.

“Afraid I wouldn’t, chica?” Tired as fuck from a rescue mission last night, I unholstered my guns and set them on the kitchen counter.

She turned with a drink in her hand. “I’m not your chica. You can drop the bullshit, Cuban Boy.” Her lips touched the glass, but her gaze zeroed in on me.

Half my mouth tipped up because that’s what her attitude did to me. Jesucristo, she was gorgeous. And a fucking handful. “Hitting it early, aren’t you?” I inclined my head at her glass to give her shit, but in truth, I’d have liked to see her a few drinks in. See what happened when she let her guard down, because even at sunrise, her dark, straight hair was picture-perfect.

“I’m not hitting anything.” She spun back around. “Yet.”

I let the smile go wide and shook my head. “But just give it time, right?” I shrugged out of my vest and tossed it on a chair.

 She ignored my question. “How long are you going to keep me locked up here?”

I stepped up next to her as she stared out at the view. “You’re free to go.” Now. Yesterday had been a different story.

“Right.” She snorted. “Like I’m free to live with who I want?”

Sunlight hit her face, and I sobered. “Never said you couldn’t.” I didn’t want her going home. I wanted to wrestle her sexy ass down and cuff her to keep her from going back to him.

She swirled the ice in her glass. “Then why am I here?”

I looked down at her. Most biker chicks I’d met weren’t like her. Yeah, she had the attitude, but she was something else too. I couldn’t put my finger on it. “You know why.” She was there yesterday when I’d extracted her from a bar full of bikers. I’d walked in like I owned the damn place, grabbed her and walked the fuck out because that’s what her biker boyfriend, Candle Scott, had wanted, and that’s what I did. Personal security.

This time when she turned to face me, there was something different in her expression. The distance, the aloofness, it was there, but there was also something close to desperation, and it immediately put me on high alert.

Every ounce of hostility disappeared from her tone. “Where’s Candle?”

“No clue.” But if I had to guess? Neck-deep in shit. The ex-Army Ranger turned biker was always in the middle of it. I just couldn’t figure out what he was doing with Kendall. Both of them denied being a couple, but I didn’t buy it. “Who is he to you?” I’d checked every thread on her background I could get my hands on, looking for information about her or Candle, but his records were sealed because he was a former ranger and hers were clean. So fucking clean in fact, it was almost as if someone had made the whole thing up. Nothing about the woman standing next to me fit the trail I’d found. She wasn’t a small-town girl from a stable family who played team sports. I’d bet my business on it. But I’d found it all, including a high school yearbook picture that looked like it’d been taken yesterday, not five years ago. None of her background added up to the mouthy woman in front of me who was shacked up with south Florida’s most notorious motorcycle gang’s sergeant at arms.

Her attitude came back. “Why? You jealous?”

“I don’t get jealous.” Because I didn’t get involved with women. Ever. Except here she was, holed up at my place because I’d stupidly convinced myself it was a favor for a biker.

I could’ve had one of my men drive her home hours ago. I owned the best personal security business in the country. Every one of my twenty-seven employees was a military-trained ex-marine. Any of them could’ve gotten her home safely, and I never would’ve had to see her again. But she was still in my fucking penthouse, because I’d stupidly wanted to see her sexy ass one more time before I let her go.

“Lucky me.” She downed her drink and moved past me in a wave of exotic perfume and attitude. “But now that I’m free to go”—she said free just sarcastically enough that I took notice—“I’ll be on my way.” She spared me a glance as she set her glass down and hefted her bag over her shoulder. “How am I getting back to Daytona?”

Stalling, I tipped my chin at her lack of clothing. “You leaving in that?”

All of a sudden, her body language changed. The angle of her head tilted, and the usually proud set to her shoulders took on a fake relaxed pose as her voice went deceptively soft. “You don’t like my outfit?” Despite her tone, the words were exactly as she intended them to be. A dare.

Schooling my expression, wanting to see if she’d squirm, I didn’t say shit. I stared at her.

She didn’t even blink.

Damn, this woman was a dangerous fixation. “I didn’t say one way or another. I only asked if you were leaving like that.” I stuck to the script because I was quickly learning that any information you fed her, she used against you.

“Like what?” Her voice still quiet, her body language was submissive as hell.

I wasn’t an idiot. I knew her intent wasn’t seduction. Hell no, this woman was throwing down a challenge. I just couldn’t figure out why. She’d been nothing but cold to me since I’d met her yesterday, and this felt like a test where touching was a guaranteed failure. I wasn’t gonna engage in this shit, but, damn, I wanted to fail her test. “Nice try, chica.”

“That wasn’t trying.” She dropped her bag and reached for the hem of her dress, whipping the flimsy material over her head so fucking fast, I never saw it coming. “How about this? You like this better?”

Jesucristo.

Excerpt:

He barely nodded as he moved closer. His intense stare eating me alive, he didn’t touch me. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

His scent, his presence, my lack of sleep and the heat…. I felt my defenses bleed out like an open chest wound. With no regard for my own vulnerability, I opened my mouth. “Six months ago, I wanted you. I wanted to feel what it would be like to have a man like you.” That’s what had thrown me in his penthouse all those months ago. For the first time in years, I hadn’t wanted to die, or make River pay. I wanted a sexy bodyguard who was more dangerous to me than River ever was. River could get me killed, but the way I felt about André? That would destroy me.

The lines between André’s eyebrows deepened. “What kind of man do you think I am?”

“Strong, honorable, determined, focused.” Sexy, giving, dominant. I didn’t have enough words, at the same time as I had too many. André was more than a wistful dream of a love-starved girl who grew up in a cult. The smile in his eyes when he looked at me was the answer to every wrong in my life. “I wanted to feel like I was yours,” I admitted.

“Chica.” He reached for my face.

I leaned back. I wasn’t finished. The words gripping my throat, choking my conscience, I needed to get them out before it was too late to set them free. “That’s what I wanted before someone brought my head to River.” Fear spread through my veins. “That’s what I wanted to take with me.” I swallowed past the point of no return. “Your smile,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Your smile when you look at me was the last thing I wanted to see.”

I barely got the final word out before his mouth crashed over mine. A growl of frustration and anger and desire, ripped from his chest as his huge hands sank into my hair and cupped the sides of my head.

His tongue drove into my mouth, and his body curved around mine, showing me what it felt like to be his. Every possessive second of his kiss robbed me of any hope of walking away from him unscathed. I was branded by this man as sure as the double Rs on my back.

“Ohhh, shit,” a familiar voice chuckled. “There’s somethin’ I never thought I’d see.”

Breathless, lost, I pulled back.

André’s deep brown eyes stared down at me. “Chica,” he whispered.

I didn’t want to hear what he was going to say, not with an audience. I touched a finger to his lips, then I glanced at my former boss, Talon Talerco. Ex-marine, surfer, professional manwhore, he stood with one arm on the canopy of the boat with his biceps flexed like he’d fucking planned it. “Screw you, Talon.”

Talon threw his head back and laughed. “Damn, Patrol, and here I’d thought you’d tamed the savage beast.”

Without taking his eyes off me, André’s hand went to his gun at his waist. “I can shoot him,” he rasped, completely serious.

I couldn’t stop it. I smiled.

“Holy shit!” Talon threw his hand over his heart. “She fuckin’ smiles?”

André let out a string of curse words in Spanish, but he took his hand off his gun. Glancing over his shoulder, he tipped his chin at Talon. “Give us a damn minute.”

“Hell no!” Talon grinned. “This is like the fuckin’ Superbowl of love connections.” He crossed his arms and leaned against a dock piling. “I ain’t missin’ a second of this.”

“Jesucristo,”André muttered, before looking back at me and dropping his voice. “We’re not done talking, chica.” He kissed me once.

“I don’t want to talk.” I wanted to get naked with him.

His smile only hit one side of his mouth, but it was no less sexy. “Don’t worry, that’s not all we’re gonna do.” He kissed my forehead and grabbed my hand. “Come on.”

André helped me step off the boat, but then he didn’t let go of my hand. Firm and possessive, he held on to me as he glanced at Talon and nodded toward the house. “I’ll help load before we take off.” He led us up the dock.

Talon grinned as he fell in behind us. “Whatever you say, lover boy.”

“Load what?” I looked between them.

“Didn’t tell her yet?” Talon chuckled. “Oh, this is gonna be good.”

I cut my gaze to André. “Tell me what?”

“Shut up, Talerco.”André squeezed my hand. “Nothing, chica. Just helping Neil load some boxes onto his truck before we leave.”

“Is that what you’re callin’this?” Talon taunted him.

“Don’t be an asshole,” André ground out.

“What?” Talon feigned offense. “I’m never an asshole.”

“You fired me,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but I sent lover boy to check on you, and we all know how that’s workin’ out, so we’re all good.”

I smirked. “I wouldn’t call us good.” Not that I didn’t understand it, I still kinda hated him for firing me. If his sexy friend wasn’t holding my hand like he couldn’t wait to get me alone, I’d really be hating Talon. But right now, all I was thinking about was a long boat ride with André.

“Hey, Kendall,” Talon called, his tone laced with mischief. “Your dresses gettin’ shorter or are you gettin’ hotter? Because, damn, that’s a—”

André spun.

With a solid shove to Talon’s chest, André pushed him off the dock.

My mouth dropped as I watched Talon fall backward into the water.

A second later, he popped up. Standing hip deep, he sputtered before he burst into uncontrollable laughter. Bending at the waist, wiping brackish water from his face, Talon laughed his ass off. “That was so fuckin’worth it!”

His expression stone cold, André glared at Talon as he took my hand again. “You good, chica?”

I looked up at André and grinned. “So good.”

Review:

Kendall Reed (Decima Stephens) is on the run. She’s being hunted by her lunatic father. Escaped from the compound she was born and raised in, now they want her back, but she helped the FBI with information and she knows capture or return is a death sentence. She’s been hiding out with a biker friend, but he’s been compromised, so he’s turned her protection over to Andre. Kendall looks at the world a little differently because of her upbringing, but she knows she wants Andre. Problem is, she’s so screwed up in the head … and she knows she has an expiration date. It’s going to be soon because she can’t hide form her father forever. Too bad she can’t just hope for a while that Andre might actually be able to save her.

Andre Luna owns a private security company. He is former military as are all of his employees. They all have particular skill sets and he vets each of his clients before taking them on. He doesn’t like to deal with drama and potentially over dangerous cases and he won’t knowingly put his men in danger – not any more than comes with the job anyway. But Kendall gets thrown in his lap and as a favor he takes her on. He knows there is a hell of a lot more to her story than he’s getting, but he never dreamed it was as deep or serious as it actually is. He’s only got one choice now to save the woman he’s falling for … and it’s going to involve several of his combat friends. They’ve only got one chance and if they screw it up, Kendall is dead. 

Full disclosure – this book contains a LOT of language. About half of it is cussing in Spanish, the rest is just bad words and graphic descriptions involving sex, lust, and death. Not saying I don’t read such books, but I felt this had more than “average”, so I wanted to mention it. At one point, even Kendall asks Andre if he thinks it’s any different cussing just because he’s doing it in Spanish. I’m sure it was meant as a joke or dig at Andre, but I was like, “I know, right?” 😊 I enjoyed this book, but had a difficult time because of the content. Andre is what I typically look for in an Alpha lead. His heritage comes out a lot in his dialogue, speaking Spanish rather frequently, but mostly in universal terms that anyone would recognize (at least in my opinion). His strong Alpha presence and Cuban heritage makes him a likeable, if not lovable character. He has skills, he knows it, and he uses them. And that’s hot! Kendall was a little different. Her mind is seriously warped. Almost to the point that I didn’t like her. I tried to be empathetic toward the character and found that I liked her a bit more when taking into consideration her circumstances and the crap she had dealt with. However, with the mental issues – you will notice it with some of the things she says – I revert back to “real life” and know that, as a couple, they would have one helluva long road ahead of them. But this is fiction, so it’s all sunshine and rainbows if we wish it, so OK. She’s also almost a contradiction of herself, exhibiting moments of extreme strength but cowering in fear at other times. I guess, in the end, I never really got a handle on her character and ultimately liked her, but didn’t love her. 

I think I would read another book in this series because obviously the female leads won’t be the same character as Kendall, and I did very much enjoy Andre’s character. Additionally, Ms. Bartel did a good job with the secondary characters in the book. Both Andre’s team and Callan were developed to a point in which I’d like to read more about them. And I’d like to see where Ms. Bartel goes with other characters that don’t come from the same background as Kendall. Overall, I am always drawn to the romantic aspect of the story and for me, I was satisfied in that respect. I just regret not being able to connect with Kendall more. The story was somewhat harsh in both language and content and was just a bit too much for me. Maybe I am just too used to military reads glamorizing so much of the death and destruction. Others of you might read this book and react differently. Something like “hell yeah, finally, something I can sink my teeth in to”. But for me, I am fine with the romanticized versions. Despite my issues with this book, my strong like for Andre gives me pretty high hopes for the other books in the series. I’ll be sure to let you guys know what I think of them.

Kindle version provided by Expresso Book Tours/Author in exchange for an honest review.

 

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