Title: A Fatal Secret

Author: Mardra

Genre: Vampire

Rating: PG-13

# of chapters: 29 (ongoing)

# of chapters I read: 2

Summary/Blurb:

"I will be quiet, you won't even know I'm here. You won't suspect a thing..."

If learning the truth meant being one of the dead and hurting the ones you love, would you still want to?

Well, Kateilyn Marie Rose does.

After her abduction, she knew the life she lived for the past seventeen years was over. But bloodsucking monsters and unresting souls? That she never knew.

And as they say, ignorance is best corrected, not forgiven.

~+~+

A Letter from Karen Marie Rose to her sister, Rossette Silverwood.

October 5th

Kate grew up fast, that I wonder if my little time with her would be enough to let her remember me. She was a very charming child, as reference to the picture you gave. She got her father's nose and eyes, that every time I stare into them, I feel tears. How could the devil himself give life to this angel?

I never knew that one could love a monster this much, but I did. I am hopeless.

I succeeded in keeping Kate away from him for now, but I don't think I would be able to hide her any longer.

He is growing suspicious of me.

He kept me locked in our chambers today. Any means of escape would be futile. He is growing restless and he is becoming more and more possessive each day, that out of jealousy, he beats me up.

Her bloodsucker of a father.

I wish we had not met, but then I wish not.

Keep Kate safe, Rossette.

This may be the last of my letters to you.

Send my regards to Manolo.

Sincerely yours,

Karen

Review:

Cover:

I don't want to be biased or anything, but your title is similar to one of my own (Deadly Secrets). So I'm gonna give you an extra point for that. I'm kidding (I don't give away points like cookies)!

So the story revolves around a single, all-encompassing secret, which, if unearthed, can be fatal. Okay, one of the tags says 'dead' so I'm assuming that someone is going to die. Excellent.

I like the cover—it's definitely not something I would have expected reading "A Fatal Secret", but I think, metaphorically speaking, it suits the title.  Because of the hair over the girl's eyes, I'm thinking of a "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" type of thing. The girl  (Kateilyn?—such a weird spelling btw) is wearing a blouse with frilly sleeves. It looks like something a person would wear as they get murdered in the middle of a forest, or while their body is prepared to be placed in the open coffin for their relatives to see. Interesting choice. 

Overall—Dead

Blurb:

I'll comment on the parts individually: first the blurb, then the letter.

I'm unsure about what the conflict is just by reading the blurb. What truth does she want to uncover, that vampires exist? Is there another world, comprised of the supernatural, that runs parallel to what we are familiar with? The whole thing is a little too vague. Additionally, the beginning quote doesn't seem to have anything to do with the information presented in the blurb. I have no idea who's saying it, and without being placed into context, I can't make anything of it. It sounds like something a ghost would say...but then again this is a vampire novel. So what is the speaker doing—lurking in the corner and cackling evilly at his victim?

I'm not being told a lot about the main character, I'm just given a bunch of questions. All I know about Katelyn is that a) she's seventeen b) she's abducted by vampires. What's the big deal about that? What differentiates this book from all the other supernatural ones? What's the aforementioned fatal secret? Based on this alone, I honestly wouldn't want to read the story.

But, things got a lot more interesting when I reached the letter. In fact, a felt a lot more inclined to read the story then, because you gave me a lot more compelling information there than you did in the blurb. It might seem that Karen is the protagonist just by reading the letter, but with the reference to her daughter, Kate, I can tell that she isn't. I can sense the woman's fear for her life, her child, and what is to come—and that is, inherently, the type of thing that keeps a reader intrigued. I do have a couple of suggestions:

1. "Her bloodsucker of a father." It's much better to just say 'vampire'. Bloodsucker can be interpreted as the man being a leech or something. I also feel that it sounds like a childish thing to say.

2. I'm unsure about what Karen's husband is growing suspicious of. If Karen sent away Kate to her sister, wouldn't her husband have already noticed her disappearance? There's obviously more to it than that, but you should mention. Is the woman having an affair? Because I don't understand what would spur her husband to be so jealous and violent. 

3. "Kate grew up fast, that I wonder if my little time with her would be enough to let her remember me. She was a very charming child, as reference to the picture you gave." Kate is still a child in this letter, so instead of the past tense, you should be using the present perfect: "Kate has grown up so fast, I wonder if what little time I've had with her was enough to help her remember me. She's a very charming child, I can tell by the picture you sent me." (There are a lot of awkwardly worded sentences, so I suggest that you look for these as well.)

4. "I wish we had not met, but then I wish not." This doesn't make sense, I suggest rewording it.

Overall—stick to the letter, or rewrite the blurb to include information from it. 

First Impression:

Yikes, okay, this prologue was a little dramatic. It's pretty traumatic for a five-year-old to witness the murder of her parents, especially by someone who doesn't feel half-bad about continuously stabbing someone, even after their death.

But I'm wondering about what the purpose of this prologue is—it doesn't really have any backstory which cannot be included somewhere in the rest of the story. To me, it just feels like it was written just for the shock factor, especially since I'm sure that the death of Kate's parents will be revisited later on in the story. If you can't draw your readers in with the first chapter, then maybe you should consider making it more compelling—there were a lot of inconsistencies about this prologue as well, so I'll just list them.

1. I have no idea where this murder takes place. All I know is that there is a stack of firewood, it's winter, and there is a lot of snow, nothing more than that. It's hard to picture the scene when you aren't given a lot of detail—was the family at a house beside the woods? In the suburbs? In the countryside?

2. There is no indication about how the murder came about, or even why there was a murder in the first place. There doesn't seem to be a purpose to it, other than the guy stealing some sort of pelt? What? I have no idea how Kate's parents got killed so easily, especially outside their home. The guy didn't even use a gun or anything to lead them out into the forest but used a knife to stab them. It's incoherent and I can't see it happening.

3. Kate is way too young to think rationally in this situation. At five-years-old, you just started kindergarten. She sees her parents get brutally murdered before her, and immediately knows where to run (?) I found it hard to connect with the character because I wasn't given a lot of emotional death. At five-years-old, seeing her mom die isn't enough to "give her a reason to continue her life." She's only a kid, who can't even think for themselves at this point. Also, I'm hoping that this trauma will affect her later on in life, and will not just serve as a cliché dramatic backstory to the main character.

4. "[....] as the horrifying death of her beloved parents unfolded in front of her very eyes." Yet, moments after the killer runs away, Kate runs over to her mother who is still alive. She was supposed to be dead, according to that sentence.

5. I don't get the whole part where her adopted family's relatives are disgusted by the kid. I'm pretty sure if the police found both her parents to be dead, an investigation would've been opened up, proving that a kid couldn't have killed her parents.

Now the first chapter was a little better, but you moved through the scenes way too quickly. I could tell that you want to get to the end, which is where the real action starts, but rushing through the introduction isn't the way to go. Again, there were things that could be improved upon:

1. What exactly was she studying, that's unclear. Initially, I thought she was just reading a book, but she was studying for something?

2. Kate tried so hard to 'hide' from her friend, yet gave in to her requests almost immediately.

3. Their conversation was very vague, and I wasn't sure what it's purpose was. What notes was Jeanne talking about? School notes?

4. Why would Kate just abandon her friend like that in a nightclub? She didn't even inform her friend that she was leaving, she just left. That's not a very sensible thing to do—especially when she's the only friend Kate has.

5. First, she was on the street, then she in the alley. There was no transition between those two places, in fact, why would she go through a dark alley, alone, at night? Knowing how vulnerable she is?

Overall—A lot of things didn't make sense/seemed unrealistic. I found it hard to relate to Kate, and Jeanne was just an annoying pain in the butt. She came across as psychotic, and I found myself skipping through her dialogue. Why would Kate associate with someone like that? Also, she lost both her biological parents AND her adoptive parents? Like....? 

Writing Style:

The grammar + punctuation was borderline atrocious. In fact, it was so bad in some parts that I found myself having to go back and reread certain paragraphs—it pulled me out of the story, especially since at times it was all I could ever focus on. For example, we had things like:

a) "She blood ran cold when suddenly the feeling of being watched settled in her."

b) "She pretended to jog and turned her way."

c) "She decided to faster her pace and stopped dead on her tracks when a nearby groan broke the silence."

There was also a lot of "...." or trailing off, for some reason, and there wasn't a lot of sentence variety. A lot of them began with "She [action]" and some were run-ons. I could go on, but you have the basic idea.

Characters:

Kate—Overly-dramatic family situation. First, she loses her biological parents then her adoptive parents (?). I found it hard to empathise with her. A lot of the things she did were hard to believe or relate to. Plus, she barely showed any emotional depth—it's like she was purposefully trying to be a recluse. She's gone through severe trauma as a child, yet shows no signs of it as a seventeen-year-old. Typical.

Jeanne—She's completely bonkers. Where did Kate find this one?

Man in the alley—Creepy as hell. Probably a vampire.

Diamond rating ♢ (1—10): 4

Honestly, I didn't enjoy reading this, and didn't find myself itching to read on. Everything was a little all over the place, the characters were a little annoying (Especially Jeanne!!!!) and it felt like the protagonist had a tragic backstory just for the sake of it. This book needs ALOT of work, so hopefully, once it's completed, you'll take the time to tear it apart and rewrite it.

Good luck!