Dark Side of Valor

by Alicia Singleton

[Cocktails and Books]

Lelia Freeman ran away from a neglectful mother hoping for a better life in LA. Instead, she ended up living on the streets and hoping she can keep out of the clutches of the local drug lord determined to make her part of his "family". More importantly, she's hoping the lifeline a local church has thrown her will help save her and her friend Joella. But things do not goes as Lelia plans. While she gains a loving support unit, she loses something dear too.

Fast forward ten years and Lelia is now running ChildSafe shelters, helping kids just like her get off the street. Because she was integral in helping a prominent newscaster reunite with his missing child, Lelia is thrust into the spotlight and catches the attention of a Washington subcommittee trying to help the orphans of a war torn African country. Leila starts questioning information provided to the committee and that ultimately leads to her kidnapping by the evil president she's supposed to be helping.

If the story stuck to this storyline, it would have been riveting. Lelia is such a strong proponent of child rights and helping make better lives for those living in less than stellar conditions that her fight with the president would have been spectacular. Even if there wasn't a fight with the president himself, but we witnessed what Lelia had to deal with to help rescue some of the children within the presidential residence it would have been gripping. But the story took a weird turn once Lelia escaped from the president.

Elijah Dune is introduced into the story as some sort of mercenary who has business with the president. He immediately makes it known that he holds some sort of animosity towards Lelia. The problem is we don't know why. So we go through the whole running through the jungle not knowing why Elijah hates Lelia so much. It's not until almost the end of the story that we learn there is a tie between Elijah and the horrible events that happened to Lelia ten years before. But when we get that information, it's also attached to a profession of love.

WHAT?!?!?

Yep, while Elijah was busy hating Lelia he was also falling in love with her and apparently she was falling in love with him while trying to figure out why he hates her. Confusing. Yes. But wait...there's more. Suddenly, after being missing for much of the last half of the book, the evil president shows back up again to cause trouble one last time.

Now this may seem like I didn't like the book, but that's not the case. I did like it. The first half of the book was intense and kept you engaged. Even the Elijah storyline kept me interested enough where I needed to find out where it was going, even if I couldn't figure out why he hated her so much.