Review: Dark Secret by Danielle Rose

Title: Dark Secret
Series: Darkhaven Saga #1
Author: Danielle Rose
Format: eARC
Pub. Date: February 18th 2020
Source: Netgalley


Book Description:

There's no wrath like that of a witch scorned.

Seventeen-year-old spirit witch Ava López is the self-appointed guardian of the witches and humans of Darkhaven, an idyllic village nestled between the forest and the sea. Her watch: vicious and bloodthirsty vampires.

Ava is a novice in the eyes of her coven. If she expects to protect them and the secrecy of their powers, she must gain better control of her own. When a full moon ritual goes awry, control may be lost forever, and Ava is exiled from her coven. Forced to seek refuge among the beings she had always sworn herself to hunt, she vows revenge on those who have upended her life.

But the more time Ava spends away from her coven, the more she discovers a startling truth: the witches haven’t been honest with her. Ava’s quest to strip the truth from everything she’s ever known begins with the toughest realization of all—coming to terms with who she has become.

Review:

★★★

I really wanted to like this book. It's got witches. It's got vampires. It's got secrets and mystery. But ultimately, I found it pretty forgettable.

The twists are pretty predictable and not really too unique. I thought the characters were pretty flat and generic- which pains me to say because the witchcraft elements seemed pretty cool conceptually. I just didn't up caring too much because I wasn't relating to characters. I do appreciate that Ava and her mother speak in and out of Spanish, it's nice to see cultural touches.

Because this book is very short- clocking in at about just under 200 pages- I felt that time was an issue. The pacing felt slow in some places and rushed in others. There didn't seem to be enough time to really flush details out the way that I would have liked. Maybe that's rectified in later installments, but I wasn't drawn in enough to book one to continue onward.

In the end, I get why there's so many positive reviews. It's a good idea for a book. It's not poorly written. A lot of people seem to like that it's in shorter format. But for me it was just pretty mediocre, and not anything that I got excited about.

I received a copy in exchange for my honest review.