Workplace romance and domestic desires clash in André, a story of romance and ambition.

André Ellison works at Ellison Financial in the middle of the pack while hoping to make his way up the corporate ladder.  When his mentor, Harold, calls him in for a meeting, his heart starts to pound – a chute or a ladder may be facing him right now.  Fortunately it’s a ladder. A proposal he’s submitted to a high-profile client has drawn their interest, putting him on a shortlist (of four) for promotion. This could make his career and mean he’ll finally get to move away from dealing with fussy clients.

To split the workload, André will be dealing with his worst nightmare – an intern provided by Clarymore and Toth, the firm with which André will soon be collaborating. He hasn’t trained one in nine years, and the last thing his go-getting self wants to do is do it again.

Said intern Marcus – Marc to his friends – Thompson is not exactly enthusiastic about working at this new place, as he’s got some ambivalent feelings about his job in general.

Neither man knows much more than the other’s name when they meet at a bar and subsequently spend the weekend together.  The Monday after unites them at work, and they are horrified to realize they must put aside their incredible weekend and be solely business associates or risk their jobs. They vow to put both sex and romance aside for the sake of the project, but it’s soon a prospect that falls by the wayside.  When things get serious, they have to confront a domestic situation that might split them for good.

Warning to those who don’t like boss-employee romances; André is definitely that, but also a story of how two men negotiate their expectations and dreams into the reality of their relationship.  But there isn’t a sense of inequity in the union – it’s about negotiating for what you want – good sex, domestic bliss, and that account you’ve been craving.

André and Marcus go from being lovers to a tentative relationship to the hope of marriage during the course of the story, and it takes a lot of work to get them there.  Marcus struggles with his desire to be a house husband, and André learns to support what his boyfriend wants while pursing his own ambitions, but not letting them, this time, drown out the other things in his life.

I loved the supporting characters, André’s mother and co-workers, Marcus’ brother and friends.  I loved the setting, filled with glass towers and warm apartments.  And the pacing and general dialogue are good, though the pat progression of the plot sometimes drags the book down.

But overall, André is a really nice, sensual, and well-paced contemporary romance that’s beautifully rendered and portrayed with sensual, gladdening and sometimes heartbreaking emotion.

Buy it at: Amazon

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