Originally posted on The Book Nympho

SEAL Team Nine’s Retiarius Platoon goes on a covert, unsanctioned mission into Siberia, Russia and realizes too late that they’ve been set up. The survivors “go dark” and scatter until they can figure out who they can trust and take down the traitor. Senior Chief Dean Baylor is undercover as Dan Warren and working as the captain on a merchant boat in the Isle of Lewis, Scotland when he clashes with marine ecologist Annie Henderson and her group of activists. What was supposed to be a simple excursion out to an oil rig turns into a nightmare that threatens to expose Dean's cover and more.

The story literally begins with a bang and the tension rarely lets up until the end. Dean is highly trained and formidable, which comes in handy when the naive but charming Annie Henderson gets them both in a fix. Despite their differences, they can’t get around their attraction to each other. There are plenty of harrowing moments and high intrigue as Annie gets herself mixed up in something that turns out to be more than a sit in on an oil rig. I really liked that there were two mysteries running concurrently with Dean and Annie struggling to avoid a romance.

I liked the premise of the story as well as the locales, which featured some of Scotland’s more obscure isles and towns. They’re very much a part of the plot, described vividly throughout. The mystery and suspense sometimes took a back seat to the romantic elements, which were pretty steamy, but overall the balance was on target. I liked both of these characters and them as a couple. While elements of the mysteries were resolved, the continuing story arc will be figuring out who was behind the catastrophe in Siberia. I’m definitely in for this series.

Wow -- action packed and great characters. Set in Scotland, plot involves a lost SEAL platoon and a marine ecologist who ends up needing from one of those lost SEALS. Lots of suspense and set up for the next book in the series... can't wait!

SEAL team nine is so covert that they don't exist except for those who need to know. When their latest mission goes so far South that half the team is dead they have to find out who leaked the intel. Dan, goes undercover as a dive boat captain to find out what happened. He meets Annie when she is chartering his boat to protest off shore drilling. He finds her cute but her save the world mentality is foreign to him. What she doesn't know if that she has joined a group that wants to do more than protest and her life is in danger. Great romantic suspense novel!

This is a great start to a new series from Ms. McCarty.
The first chapter blew me away with the camaraderie and joking between the team as they headed into danger and what turns out to be a trap. As the book continues I was happy to see that some of the team has survived though it is still not clear who survived and who's pulling the strings. Never the less its a great romance and I look forward to the unfolding of the story and hopefully finding the traitor who betrayed the team.

I’ve read Monica McCarty before and overall enjoyed her books, but Going Dark fell a little short for me. It wasn’t a bad read, but it wasn’t great one either. I will admit, it has potential to be a good series.

Dean is a Chief Seal who has gone dark after a failed covert mission. While trying to stay low to figure out what happened, Dean finds himself caught up with a marine ecologist and activist that makes his situation even worse.

I had a hard time enjoying this book. I found myself disliking the heroine more than I liked the story. Her stupid naive choices as an activist annoyed me. I just couldn’t agree with the way she protested for her cause. Her hate for the military was ridiculous, yet when in trouble she expected them to save her. By the end of this book, I thought she was nothing but a rich girl who has nothing else better to do in her life. The funny thing is, the further I write this review, the more I remember how much she annoyed me.

However, I found Dean’s fascination for Annie intriguing. He couldn’t stop himself from wanting to save her stupid a**. I almost wanted to hate him for it as well, but I do love a hero who saves the day. Dean is just that; very alpha, very sexy, and a take charge kind of guy. I liked him enough.

I think this series has potential to be good. There was plenty of action, steamy scenes, and the background story of betrayals within the ranks was interesting, a very Bourne kind of plot. I think romantic suspense readers would enjoy this series as long as they can overlook the shortcomings of the heroine. I’m hoping Mccarty will up her game in the next installment though I’m not sure if I will follow this particular series.

What can I say about Going Dark after finally getting through it? Well, Going Dark is not a bad story but it definitely wasn't a fantastic story. It is one of those military A-Team type stories I have read quite a few times. A platoon goes missing or is blamed when something goes on a mission. In the case of Going Dark it is they go "missing” and it is assumed they were all killed in action. All is not right on the mission and the survivors must go into hiding. So, Dean aka Dan is hiding out in Scotland working on a charter boat. That is how he comes across Annie. Annie has to come to Scotland with her boyfriend Julien and his friends. They hire Dean’s charter boat as part of a plan to protest the oil drilling that is going on off the coast of Scotland. Somehow, Annie finds out her boyfriend Julien betrayed her and is tangled up in some seriously dangerous stuff. Now, Annie is on the run with the hot sea boat captain Dan aka Navy Seal in hiding Dean.
Sadly, I thought this book was going to better than it was. I felt like I was reading this book forever. It was just a middle of the road book with pockets of grab you by the seat of your pants action. My biggest complaint was how freaking long it to get the ball rolling in this story. I think it was about 25% before they were on the run and that is when things really took off both chemistry and plot wise.
I will say that I did like chemistry between Dean and Annie. The sexy fun times were definitely sexy. There were definitely a few times I had to fan my face.
Going Dark did have a lot of action that kept my attention towards the end. I just felt like there was something missing though. I wanted more from the overall plot that will be running through this series. The only thing anyone ever says including Dean himself about why they are all in hiding is that “it’s too dangerous and a need to know situation”. I felt like as the reader we should be privy to those need to know secrets. I need more as far Annie and Dean were concerned too. There were just a lot of open ended questions and not many answers. The only answer we get as the reader is that the mystery of week gets tied up nicely. Mostly I just felt like, I just sat through 325 pages and I needed more from this story.
I will admit that I am kind of invested in this story now so I will probably be picking up the next book in the series. I need to know what is going with why the SEAL team was ambushed and who wants them dead. I need more and hopefully I will get it in the next book.

Good story that could have been great! To start I must say the Prologue is one of the longest I have read and one you must pay attention to. It's almost too much.

I was really excited to read this story and delve deeper into it. However, it took me a while to read this book because of how much was going on in it. The main female lead kind of aggravated me with her decisions during parts. There were so many different side stories and it was difficult to follow at times. I think this book could have been great if it focused a little more on one story line instead of so many different stories and perspectives. Great action and the side stories were nice but probably would have been better in another book.

Received an ebook ARC from NetGalley

Going Dark by Monica McCarty
Berkley Book, 2017
Romance (Suspense); 352 pgs
Source: E-Copy provided by publisher via NetGalley for review.

I have read three of Monica McCarty’s Highlander romance novels and was curious to try her new contemporary series featuring a Navy SEAL team. In this first book in the series, the reader discovers that a top secret mission of the SEALs has gone terribly wrong. As a result, they have scattered across the world and are in hiding, believed to be dead.

Marine Ecologist Annie Henderson is unaware of any of that when she travels to the Western Isles of Scotland with her boyfriend of 3 months to protest off-shore drilling. Her suspicions that something sinister is afoot and that there is more to the protest than she's been told turn into a horrific reality. she finds herself turning to the captain of the charter boat she and her friends have rented. Dan Warren (aka Dean) is secretive to a fault, but for some reason she feels like she can trust him. He, of course, is trying to stay under the radar, but soon realizes that getting involved with Annie will likely have the opposite effect.

While the attraction between the two protagonists is obvious from the first moment they meet, they do not hit it off well initially. Besides, Annie is in a relationship already. It is clear though that the relationship will be short lived—even Annie is doubting herself for traveling all the way to Scotland from the U.S. with a man she has only known a short time. It took me a moment to warm up to Annie, but eventually I did. I liked Dean’s character right away.

I liked the way the two interacted. They have very different ideas politically, which made for interesting conversations at times, but it was clear they respected each other’s opinions. In today’s political climate I sometimes feel like I fall far left, but in reading this book, I was reminded that I really am more moderate. That said, don’t think this book is heavy in politics. It isn’t at all, and the author does a good job of not really taking sides.

This falls into the insta-lust to love in a high stress situation and short amount of time romance category. I liked Annie and Dean together, but I was not completely sold that it was true love even by the end. While I found the eco-terrorist story line compelling, I was even more drawn into the lost platoon arc, wondering who had betrayed the team and what was going to happen from there. I imagine that will be a continued theme throughout the series. I enjoyed reading Going Dark. It was a nice change of pace after some heavier and sadder books I recently read. There was quite a bit of tension and suspense which made this a fast read.

There were a lot of elemen's here I really liked, but I struggled with the political conversation that took up a lot of the romance back & forth. It may be an effect of the time of writing just doesn't match with the current political environment, but the discourse just left me very unsettled, especially in a time when I prefer romance to be an escape from the dismal state of affairs of our country right now.

Review featured at www.books-n-kisses.com

So I am on the fence about this one. First when I started reading I was so confused in who was who. We meet the whole team of SEALS and spend some time getting to know each and every one. Just to later read the team mission has gone bad and they need to go into hiding. I was really really confused…. Just too many people….

Oddly enough while we spent so much time learning about the characters they seemed a bit one dimensional. There didn’t seem to be much connection between the two. The conversations just seem so odd. Nothing seems to flow naturally.

I honestly think there was just too much going on that everything felt off. The concept of the story is good. We never really think of a SEAL team having to deal with a bad mission, betrayal and having to go into hiding so the concept is great. Problem was so much was in the author’s head that the reader really was lost.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 Stars

There isn’t anything I don’t like about the setup for this series. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

SEALS
Espionage
Rogue MCs
Action/Adventure

Check, check, checkity check! And giddyupp!

Monica McCarty is a new to be author and I’m glad I took a chance on Going Dark because it is a strong set up for a series. Her writing style flows pretty well. The word ‘but’ is used. A lot. The translations of English idioms was unnecessary for me and the whole thing *hopefully* got a proof before it was published, but the story is engaging and held my attention.

SEAL Team 9 is sabotaged on a mission in Russia and wind up losing over half their platoon. The rest scatter, “going dark” presumably all over the world with minimal contact with each other. The overarching story arc linking the books is figuring out who the leak(s) is and what their motivation was.

Senior Chief Dean Baylor is our first SEAL. Known as Dan the scruffy charter boat Captain in the Scottish Isles. An alpha with a capital A, plainspoken, gruff, Texan and a Big Un. *growls* Part of his being a SEAL is traveling light, so he’s perfected the art of wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am.

Annie is an idealistic environmental scientist fresh off obtaining her Ph.D. and she’s come to the Scottish Isles to protest offshore drilling with Julien, her French boyfriend WHO LOOKS LIKE OLIVIER MARTINEZ!!!. *dies* Initially I thought we were going down ‘comparison highway’ wherein Annie would compare her boyfriend to death and come realize he didn’t stack up against Hotty McHotterseal which isn’t something I’m real fond of. Thankfully we avoided that car crash.

Stuff happens and they end up in a dinghy together, something I still contend was a bad call but I understand if it had gone the other way-the smart way-the whole narrative would’ve been dead in the water. I get it. But still. Dumb.

They’re on the run together which ratchets up the chemistry and tension to eleventy kagrillion degrees despite Annie’s protestations regarding alphas. Surprisingly there wasn’t a lot of hibbity-gibbity which was kind of disappointing given the page count. However they did manage to never use a condom. The stupidity of this is… *siiiiiiiiggghhhh* Why people? Whhhhhhyyyyyy?

Anyways, my disappointment in grown adults not having the conversion beforehand notwithstanding I liked these characters. Both are well constructed and strongly fleshed out. I particularly liked the big tough SEAL having substantial knowledge of Disney movies and the opposites attract trope was executed well. Even though they are opposites they respect the other’s opinion, play off each other well, manage to have moments of levity and McCarty did a great job of showing their emotional investment in the other by using dual POVs.

Now, hang tight I’m going somewhere with this. So I had a conversation about romance as a genre and she said what puts her off about it is how everyone is so breathtakingly beautiful to which I said, ‘not always but I see what you’re saying’. Then I went on to say that I think oftentimes it’s realistic in that everyone has their “type” be it gingers, beefcakes, Asians, Tom Hardy, whatever. So one person’s ‘meh’ is another person’s ‘my underwear just combusted’. I’m not sure I won the argument but there was a meaningful pause and some nodding so perhaps. At any rate, I say all this because the beauty thing skirted the line betwixt our opposing sides. I get that they are attracted to each other, but I think the physical aspects of how attractive they are was heavy handed.

Another thing I wasn’t crazy about was the push/pull between them. Dean’s reasons for pushing her away are sound, but Annie’s were weaksauce. Both played games and I’m not a fan of that, though Annie does get points for being straight with him at the end.

There was a good balance struck between the romance and the adventure, though the last “big gesture” was unforgivably stupid. Don’t get me wrong, it was romantic and dramatic but… oh my sweet lord. *face palm* HOW? How does one forget that? Someone trained and seasoned????

A word of caution, the SEAL/military-speak is heavy. It’s evident a substantial amount of research was done on the military, environmental statistics and science all of which I appreciated and served to make these characters more credible, in my opinion.

I’m not sure I’m up for the entire series but I’m definitely interested in the next one and would recommend this to romantic suspense fans.

ARC received for review

3.5 stars

I love Ms. McCarty's Highland Guard, so I jumped at the chance to read this book. Is was a very slow start, and then dragged a little. Lots of people introduced that I'm not really sure who they are going to be, and it was a little confusing at times. Dean is all kinds of yummy and hot. Annie not a lot to say about her. There is a HEA, but no resolution to who tried to blow up all of the SEAL team...not even any hints or ideas.

I had some trouble in the beginning with this book because of the big info dump re: the team members of the to-be Lost Platoon. It took some time for me to remember who's who and to get used to the POVs (I was a bit surprised that the first POV in the book wasn't the Main POV, LOL).

Plot-wise, I would have liked for it to have more on the suspense/thriller side. I also would have liked for the plot involving the main characters, Annie and Dean, to be related to whatever it is behind The Lost Platoon instead of something else altogether. It felt to me like their story is more of a side-plot to What Happened to The Lost Platoon? thing. They spent most of the time on the run in this book while Dean's contacts worked behind the scenes to clear their names and to uncover the truth re: the Lost Platoon. Admittedly I was more interested in those BTS workings than the mess Annie and Dean found themselves in, and I was also more interested in the side characters: Colt-Kate-Scott? I detect a boatload of angst there and I'm excited for their book(s).

Other than that, it's a solid and entertaining start to a series. I'm definitely intrigued to know more about the conspiracy behind the events that led to the whole team going dark. I love Annie and Dean, and their intellectual banters and nicknames for each other. I love seeing how their relationship developed from mutual dislike to something different and more intimate, though I do think it's a bit too quick for them to be in love with each other. That saying, I really adore the epilogue.

4.5 Stars

Annie, a marine ecologist, left the US to protest an oil drilling off the pristine coast of Scotland with her boyfriend, Julien. Her new boyfriend, and she can’t hardly believe her hasty decision. Sure, she’s all for saving the planet from greedy big corporations that care for nothing but the bottom line, but now that she’s in Scotland the plans seem a little more intense that she bargained for. Also, Annie’s getting wicked bad vibes from Julien’s best friend, Jean Paul, the leader of the group.

Annie’s in the middle of the ocean when she realized exactly how dangerous her situation is, and unfortunately, she has no one to confide in or ask for help except for the rude boat captain, Dan. Even with his gruff demeanor, there’s something about Dan that feels trustworthy, and she has no other options.

Dan is working as a boat captain in Scotland, lying low after his covert SEAL mission went to hell. Helping Annie could blow his cover and his isn’t the only life at risk.

Going Dark is romantic suspense at its finest! After a little settling in, sorting out the members of SEAL Team Nine, the story takes off, and we focus on just one of the guys, Dan. Not his real name, but you find out exactly which teammate he is relatively quickly.

Dan and Annie don’t get off to the best start, because he’s kind of an ass, but who can blame him with everything that happened? Doesn’t matter what kind of manners he had, because he turned out to be Annie’s rock. They try and stay ahead of the danger and survive, whether from the elements or evil people, and it’s a non-stop action filled ride to stay alive! Let me tell you, Dan’s pretty impressive; that SEAL training definitely paid off! The attraction Dan and Annie felt from the moment they laid eyes on each other simmers and spills over into some wickedly hot encounters sure to leave you hot and bothered! That lifeboat ride, oh my!

No worries about the “boyfriend” Julien. Things didn’t look good early on, and he’s basically a non-issue, IMO.

Even though the romance and current situation is settled nicely, there is an ongoing story arc, the covert mission that went horribly wrong for SEAL Team Nine. The reason they’re hiding out. They’re getting some inside help, trying to figure out how they were betrayed and by whom. This sets up the stories to come, and there’s a couple of romances in the works from what I can tell. I’m curious about Kate and Colt. Will they be a couple of will Kate be paired with Scott? I’m kind of rooting for Colt, but either could be possible.

At any rate, Going Dark was an excellent kick off to The Lost Platoon series! Monica McCarty’s writing was fast-paced and addictive, balanced with well-developed characters I grew to love. Count me in for the coming books!

A copy was kindly provided by Berkley Books in exchange for an honest review.

In the beginning of Going Dark, we follow SEAL Team Nine as they run a covert mission in Russia. No one beyond the group knows they are entering into the risky situation; there is no cavalry backing them up. Things quickly go south and we are left with the feeling that some, if not all, of the group, are killed. Fast forward two months and we see one soldier from the team, Dean, now going by Dan Warren, off the coast of Scotland. He’s hiding low, working for a charter company when he stumbles into Annie Henderson and her friends as they are preparing to protest exploratory drilling off the Isle of Lewis. Annie has a Ph.D. in marine ecology, and although she’s never been an activist in the past, her boyfriend, Julien, and his friends have extensive experience. Dan and Annie butt heads, to begin with, but eventually, Annie and the protesting crew head out on a boat, with Dan as the captain, to connect with the oil drilling vessel.

From the start of the journey, Dan and Annie make one another uncomfortable. They are complete opposites, but even so, they find each other darn attractive. Neither Dan nor Annie find the attraction convenient.

He had lines that he didn’t cross, and bleeding-heart liberals-a protester, for Christ’s sake-who probably sat around the campfire wearing Birkenstocks and eating granola while singing Kumbaya, and burning the flag that he’d spent his life defending were definitely over that line. Way the hell over that line.

Through a series of events, Dan and Annie cut their losses and leave the other passengers on board the boat Dan was captaining. They also begin a physical relationship and, although Annie has ditched her previous boyfriend at this point, the quick shift in their status left some unanswered questions in both their minds. For most of Going Dark Dan’s true identity wasn’t even known to Annie. They sure had some chemistry, though!

Cheeks aflame with mortified heat, she tried to pull away, but he caught her with one of those rock-hard arms and pulled her back in tight. “Don’t. I want you right here.”

His voice so close to her ear sent shivers down her spine. Sure, that was it. It wasn’t the sense promise in his words. He was feeling it, too. He liked it. He wanted her.

Was that what she wanted? Sex with a stranger? Even if he was a really hot stranger?

Suddenly she realized what this must look like. She was acting like a sex-starved porn star in a really bad movie-Perfect Sex Storm, maybe? She didn’t even know who he was. A half hour ago she thought he could be a serial killer.

Even after Dan and Annie gave into the chemistry they felt, their relationship felt jerky and unstable at times. The bulk of Going Dark showed Dan and Annie trying to figure out where they stood in relation to one another in both the short- and long-term. It also didn’t hurt that they were running for their lives, without supplies, and were forced to keep hidden for days at a time for safety reasons. You know, normal everyday romantic suspense stuff.

As the book progressed it became clear that these two were also emotionally involved, even if they didn’t make a conscious decision to entangle themselves.

Many scenes in Going Dark, specifically the sex scenes, had a dream-like quality to them. Despite McCarty being perfectly clear that the characters were awake and cognizant, the scenes were written in a way in which things felt hazy and dewy. The sex scenes, and other scenes with the hazy quality, absolutely blew me away. I have found myself, in the days between finishing the book and writing this review, going back to relieve the specific moments in Going Dark, trying to relive their magic. If McCarty’s writing always possesses the dream-like trait found in Going Dark, sign me up! I’ll go back each and every time for more of the McCarty magic.

Annie woke slowly from a deep, deep sleep. The dreamy fog took a while to dissipate. She was so warm and comfortable, it was almost as if she didn’t want to let it go.

Instinctively she snuggled deeper into the body that was holding her from behind.

She sighed, knowing exactly who it was.

God, he felt good. His chest was like a wall of warm steel at her back, and his legs and arms were like a muscular fortress wrapped around her. She felt safe and protected and…hot.

I’m locked into this series for the long-haul as we journey together to see what happened to SEAL Team Nine and how they plan to move forward. McCarty has started me on this seriously messed-up, suspenseful path with the crew and I can’t wait to see where it takes us.

I had a really difficult time getting into the believability of Going Dark. The plot was seemingly going in a good direction, but mainly I experienced difficulty in understanding the main female character and her naivety (that felt beyond what could be considered naive and went into the territory of willful ignorance). I couldn't find enough redeeming qualities in her to like her and understand her actions, which unfortunately made it hard to keep reading the story. It was my first Monica McCarty novel, but it won't be my last as I enjoyed the other aspects to the story so I'll keep trying.

This is an ARC from the publishers and netgalley.com.

I gave this a 3 star review because the story was just another military romance and the action was ok. Not much happened until around the 30% mark. Dan/Dean was a good character but was a typical alpha male. Some peoples ideal man; strong, mysterious, looking out for the little guy. Don't forget he had a ten (not five) o'clock shadow. What? Why? Did that make him MORE masculine?

I didn't like Annie at all. She was tstl. Annie doesn't like the US military. Why? Because her daddy was in the military? I'm a proud Army brat. Thank you to all who serve and have served!! Annie talks with Dan/Dean for about 3 conversations and she knows what he is like? He's hiding things, she knows, but she can tell "that's him....matter of fact and without innuendo." Once Annie finds the explosives she tells Dan/Dean and also tells him that her and her friends were only supposed to break the drill. She gets all upset about Dan/Dean hiding things. "Clearly the captain didn't want to risk a run-in with the police. Was he on the run? Some kind of criminal?" Ah, no, Annie, YOU are the one who's some kind of criminal! Ok, no more about Annie. She's giving me a headache.

Ok, another irritating character is Julian. Oh, the poor put upon baby. I just didn't like him no matter how much he wanted to be nice.

John-Paul, another stereotypical bad guy.

.....well, now it's all giving me a headache. I think I'll stick with Suzanne Brockmanns TroubleShooters Inc. series. She knows how to write great male and female characters.

Going Dark was a story full of action,suspense and a great romance.I really enjoyed this story, the plot was great and fast paced.The story kept my interest until the end.

Annie is determined,strong and fierce heroine.I can say that I like it most of the time but there were some moments that she frustrate me a little bit.Dean is tough,dark and sexy.They were so opposite but they have an amazing chemistry.

Overall it was a great story,if you like action to your stories then you should definitely pick this one.I'm excited for the next book!

When I heard that Monica McCarty was writing a romantic suspense book, I think I salivated a little looking forward to the read. I’m a fan of her historical books and I love it when authors stretch themselves into new genres. It is both a familiar writing style with a new context and what a context it is. I love the premise of this new series. It holds great potential for exciting reads.

SEAL Team Nine is covertly sent into Russia to see if they can find evidence that the Russian President Ivanov is creating a doomsday device. However, if caught, their intrusion into Russian territory will be the catalyst for war. In other words, the stakes are extremely high. Unfortunately, something does go wrong and the team members have to scatter. Meanwhile, the world thinks they are dead. (Thus, the series title is the Lost Platoon.) This is the backstory of the series as the individual books focus on the living team members and their fight to find out what happened in Siberia and who is the traitor who warned the Russians. Going Dark features Senior Chief Dean Baylor. As the senior chief, he leads the enlisted men and is highly regarded by the officers. He is the most experienced man in the platoon and is described as “no-nonsense, tough-as-nails veteran sailor in the old-fashioned sense of the job who always seemed to have the answer.” As far as this genre goes, I love this type of character – stubborn, patriotic, committed, protective. The best kind of alpha.

The relationship between the hero and heroine is best described as how opposites attract. He is mostly stoic, educated from the school of hard knocks, bleeds red, white and blue, and has hints of chauvinism. Annie Henderson is a recent Ph.D. in marine biology who travels to Scotland to take part in a protest against oil drilling off the shores. She considers herself a liberal and a feminist. Where she is soft, he is hard. Their clashes are the strongest part of the story. The dialogue is witty and sharp. Through their interactions, we can see how two people from vastly different backgrounds and ideologies can argue and laugh through their differences. It is refreshing and provides a model of how people can be both serious and convicted about their issues, but still get along. Nice job.

If you are a fan of Monica McCarty, this story will give you her signature complexity, clever humor, and breathtaking pace. As you can imagine as a SEAL trying to avoid discovery, Baylor is constantly on the move, add to that, Annie’s involvement with an eco-terrorist organization, and there is a lot of running. Ms. McCarty also sets up the beginning of a future story with an operator named Colt that has me chomping at the bit for the next book. I look forward to a long and prosperous relationship between me and SEAL Team Nine.

Monica McCarty surprised the heck out of me when I saw that she started a romantic suspense series after years of writing historical highlanders. Going Dark is her first foray into a contemporary series and it was nonstop danger and suspense. A platoon of Navy SEALS was detected on a dark op and it completely when to hell in a hand basket. Dean Baylor is in hiding on the coast of Scotland, captaining a diving boat, while he waits and tries to figure out who betrayed the team and why. Annie has come to Scotland to protest the oil dredging and naively found herself with a band of ecoterrorist out to blow up the oil platform. When she’s caught Dean comes to her rescue and they find themselves on the run.

Annie and Dean couldn’t deny their attraction to one another even when things are precariously dangerous surrounding them. Dean is fighting this knowing it couldn’t go anywhere and you could feel the angst and hurt when you can see how good they are for one another. Putting a liberal with a conservative led to lively conversations but it showed them a different point of view they need to consider. They may not look like they would work, but opposites make it work because they find themselves in love.

From start to finish I was totally engrossed with this story and the danger that Dean and Annie were embroiled in. I am captivated by the mystery of so many unanswered questions and can’t wait to read more. Monica McCarty is a favorite who writes wonderful stories and I see great things for this series. I look forward to reading more about these men and the reason for them going dark.