Best Laid Plans (The Mercenaries Book 1) Kindle Edition

Crazy good and action packed love story! Oh my goodness, what a ride! This book hits the ground running and it will leave you on the edge of your seat while white knuckling your Kindle. The characters are strong, tough, stubborn and completely captivating. I want to be Lily, she takes bad-assery to another level. She didn't just keep up with the boys, she left them in the dust at times. Marc is the perfect anti-hero, with his tough talk, rough ways, and devil may care attitude. Kingsley is the perfect gentleman bandit, he was delicious.

This is the first book I have ever read by Stylo Fantome, and I have to say she has an exciting and unique writing style. Not many authors can pull of this kind of story with so much going on and keep it cohesive and interesting through out. I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

Liliana ‘Lily’ Brewster has one mission in life – revenge. Revenge for the death of her sister. In order to accomplish that goal, she has spent the last five years earning the trust of the Bravta – the Russian mob – as a mercenary. Lily is one bad-ass heroine. She has trained hard to get where she is, and she is very good at what she does. To her annoyance, she feels herself very attracted to Marcelle ‘Marc’ De Sant, another mercenary working for the Bravta. Lust isn’t a distraction she wants or needs, but resisting Marc isn’t a possibility.

“She had a mission, something she had to do. Something she needed to do. Something she had been planning for five years. She couldn’t risk ruining it by chasing after a boy. She couldn’t…”

Marc is a mercenary, plain and simple. For the right amount of money he’ll do whatever a client wants him to do. After his parents were killed by a hurricane while living in Haiti, he quickly got involved with the dark side of human nature at a young age. Although Marc lives a rough and brutal life, months on end in the less stellar places of this world, he still can enjoy the finer things in life. Meeting Lily during a dangerous job isn’t something he anticipated, but he can’t do anything but give in to his urges.

“But they chatted and they flirted and they danced around each other. Became friends. He liked her, h supposed. He didn’t like many people.”

After they have shared a long night of hot sex, Marc believes Lily seduced him and left him to be taken out by local criminals. The ruthless mercenary he is, he immediately sets out take his revenge on Lily and make her pay for what he believed she did. After a not so happy ‘reunion’, the couple quickly pieces together what actually happened and decides to travel together with some rules and boundaries in order to prevent distraction. Of course, the rules and boundaries they have set are meant to be broken, they just can’t stay away from each other.

The story being told in Best Laid Plans reads like an action movie with not only a hot bad-ass hero, but also an equally bad-ass heroine who’s just as ruthless. I’ve truly enjoyed this story, being told in the familiar writing style of Stylo Fantome I have learned to love in the Kane trilogy. Besides Lily and Marc, I really liked Marc’s colleague Kingsley. A man very different from Marc, but not any less attractive.

“Just you wait, Marcelle De Sant. I’ll be the best anyone in this business has ever seen. Just you f**king wait.”

Since this is part of a series, the story being told isn’t finished yet. I can’t wait for December 15th when the second part of the story, Out of Plans, will be published. I need to know what happens next to Lily, Marc, and also Kingsley. For the people who really want to know: yes, this book ends in a cliffhanger, but honestly, I consider this a very mild one.

I give this action-packed, refreshing story 4 stars.

This book was a five star read for me given so many reasons: 1) Lily: a strong, no nonsense, bad a** female mercenary; 2) Marc: a bad a** male character written as a "grow on you" anti-hero mercenary; 3) Kingsley: a hot, British mercenary providing comedic relief/partial love interest; 4) anti-romantic plot packed with non-stop action and underlying ribbons of shared emotional & physical abandonment fears.

This story is very different from a traditional romantic suspense. However, the superb way in which Ms. Fantome weaves her literary web of unassuming romance has the reader cheering for the life of a romantic relationship in the midst of a diamond heist gone terrible off plan. The imagery was such that a big budget action movie plays through the reader's mind as each page is turned. I was pleasantly surprised by my continued interest in this story. How often do you root for the guys who job it is to kill people? I am highly anticipating the continuation and conclusion in the next book.

Mercenaries on impossible missions, diamonds, African gangs, the Russian mob and an action packed ride - you just can't go wrong with that!

The heroine, Lily Brewster is strong, determined and kick-ass to the max! I loved it!!! She absolutely never stops fighting even when she is scared out of her mind and trust me, some of the situations she found herself in were harrowing.

Marc De Sant is our hero. A ruthless, cunning and hot mercenary who has no time for emotion. He can be a cold-blooded killer or a thief who can acquire the impossible for the right price.

Lily and Marc meet while on a job for the Russian mob in Liberia. She is a transporter of illegal goods and Marc is the gun for hire or thief in this instance. Sparks fly and the two have a steamy night together as their assignment is wrapping up, or so they thought...

Mayhem abounds in this thrill ride and in the last third of the book, an associate of Marc's arrives on the scene. A handsome, British mercenary, Kingsley, joins the dynamic duo and opts to help them during the last stages of their adventure. Kingsley is very quickly smitten with Lily and makes no bones about it.

The setting is all over Africa and I had to hit the map app on my phone and follow the cross country trek of the characters! I could not put this book down and devoured it in a day!

The cliff hanger here was not too bad. It ends leaving you wanting more for sure, but it was the perfect place to end it. I will most definitely be buying the next book in the series! Be sure to read the little teaser for the next book after the author's acknowledgements. FANTASTIC JOB Stylo!! Thank you!

Stylo keeps getting better and better. You will never be disappointed by one of her books. This had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. The writing is such that you become the characters. You are transported away and nothing matters except what is going to happen next. The first half of the book is about 2 mercenaries Marc and Lily, that stole millions of dollars worth of diamonds and half to fight gangs and Mafia from stealing the diamonds back. There is a chemistry that is developing between the two that is wonderful. They are funny, tough, and sexy. Then we are introduced to one Kingsley Law. Add him to the mix and wow! The banter, dialogue, euphemisms are beyond words. Can't wait to see what happens in the next book. Definitely need more Marc and Kingsley!! And badass Lily!