Book Review: Cover of Darkness

Book Title: Cover of Darkness

Author Name: Kaylea Cross

Book pages: 262 pages

Series: Suspense series, #2

Genre: Suspense and thriller

Originally Published: March 15th 2010

Publisher: The Wild Rose Press

Rating: 1 star out of 5

Synopsis:

Targeted by a terrorist cell, Bryn McAllister survives a bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut only to be left to die in a desert cellar.

When she is rescued by Navy SEAL Lieutenant Declan McCabe and his team, Bryn must rely on the handsome officer to get her to safety.

But just when she thinks the nightmare is over, family friend and legendary CIA operative Luke Hutchinson recruits her and McCabe to help track down the terrorist mastermind responsible for the attack. 

With Bryn determined to see the terrorist brought to justice, Dec joins up to protect her, prepared to do whatever it takes to keep her safe during their dangerous mission.

Battling the explosive attraction between them, Dec fights to keep his distance from her so he can do his job and keep her alive.

But when plans fall apart and Bryn is captured, he must make the agonizing choice between his duty as a SEAL and the life of the woman he loves.

My Review:

Cover of Darkness is a military suspense and full of action with the mixture of romance.
It's a Middle East-based fictional romantic thriller.

I did not enjoy the book.
There were so many scenes which didn't make sense at all.
The story felt illogical and unrealistic to me. I wanted it to be over soon.
Although the military actions were well done.

Bryn the main female lead was so so so stupid that it made me wish that Farouk Tehrazzi (the villain) would kill her and end the story.

The special ops soldiers who are supposed to protect Bryn made even more dumb decisions than Bryn herself and put her in serious risk so many times.

The whole book is full of stupid decisions made by the characters.

Plus I hated Luke's character. He's so selfish, mean and unprofessional. It gave the impression that Luke does not care about anyone, not even his son nor his wife. Not even the civilians. 
I get it that he trained those terrorists and created monsters. He's guilty and believe that it's his responsibility to catch them. But this does not give him the right to lie to his team members. It felt that he has zero moral values and has lost his humanity.

Every male character in the book is so obsessed with our main female lead that it gets annoying.

The romance between Bryn and Declan is okayish.

PLOT:

Farouk Tehrazzi (the villain) is responsible for bombing the embassy and kidnapping Bryn and her father because of some political conflict. 

He left them in a cellar to die without any food and water which led to the death of her father.

Bryn later got rescued by our hero Dec and his SEALS team. Tehrazzi isn't happy about this and he set a bounty on her head.

Dumb Decisions:

1. The leader of special ops team Luke asked our heroine to join their team so they can use her as a bait to capture the terrorist leader Farouk Tehrazzi. ( one of the dumb decisions )
In my opinion, she just slowed them down and didn't follow rules. Almost got herself killed, so many times. 

2. There is no point of asking a civilian with zero experience of military training to join the special ops team to catch a sadistic terrorist leader.

3. Why would they allow Bryn to pretend to be a prostitute and belly dance in a brothel full of bad people? They could easily ask any local prostitute to do that ! This incident almost got her killed. ( Another dumb decision made by Luke )

4. No point for Bryn to follow the team into battles, especially  to the village where they were going to order a predator drone strike on a targeted house.
They let her witness the explosion, especially when innocent children were involved. Watching human lives being lost nearly knocked her out. On top of that, they left her alone there, like seriously ?

5. Tehrazzi kidnapped Bryn and her father. Instead of leaving them in a cellar to die of dehydration and hypothermia. Why don't just shoot them right there?

But I do love Sam's character. Her gone missing in the end did send me thinking what happened to her and where did she go ?

I hate unresolved plots. Tehrazzi wasn't caught and is planning something big.

Highly not recommended.