Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read and review this title. I will review this title at a different date.

Dark Secret introduces you to a series you can't get enough of! Dive into a magical world of witches and vampires, where you don't know what to believe or who to trust. I had the strongest urge to binge-watch True Blood after finishing this book. I loved the different aspects and characters that came into play. Such a creative story, that my mind wouldn't shut off with possibilities, it was the quickest I've ever devoured a book in one sitDark Secret introduces you to a series you can't get enough of! Dive into a magical world of witches and vampires, where you don't know what to believe or who to trust. I had the strongest urge to binge-watch True Blood after finishing this book. I loved the different aspects and characters that came into play. Such a creative story, that my mind wouldn't shut off with possibilities, it was the quickest I've ever devoured a book in one sitting. Literally counting the days until the next one releases!ting. Literally counting the days until the next one releases!

Highly entertaining, exciting and action packed adventure filled with dangerous and exciting charters, witty dialog, heart racing twists and exciting turns. Really enjoyed this magical journey!

Yippee book one of a new series by a favorite author. Not a genre I read a lot but when I do I want the well told and well written stories that can be found in authors like Danielle Rose because every oñce in a while we need to switch it up and read about witches and vampires. Happy reading!

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.

I had such high hopes for this book but unfortunately, it just wasn't for me. I just couldn't get into this store and so I quit it about 45% into it.

Usually, I would be all over books like this. Sadly, this book just never picked up for me. Overall, the story was very basic and seemed a bit like Buffy, but not in the best way possible. I wasn't a fan of this at all.

Omg kept me wondering what going to happened. Wow! what an amazing start to a new series! Ava is so fierce and goes through so much! A great read, kept me fully engaged and I absolutely loved it had hard time putting it down

I really enjoyed reading this book. Was totally not what I was expecting. But it's so good. Loved every second. I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

Scheduled to post 3/3/20.

Where did I stop? 34% in

Why? Ultimately, this book is poorly edited. There's walking back over established world rules/inconsistencies (spirit witches having minimal control over the elements but Ava has some control over them oh BTW if there's an element nearby they can ride it and sort of harness its power; vampires turning to dust and "cleaning up after themselves" in one scene and leaving scattered body parts in the next), redundant writing (multiple mentions of getting grounded for sneaking out to hunt in one chapter or Ava wanting to talk to Liv about what happened, repeatedly, in another), and wasted space on unnecessary information (overly detailed about what chakras are and how they operate; far too detailed about a moon ritual). My copy of the book was only 167 pages long. There's so much that could have been cut to make the plot move forward more smoothly without it stalling for unnecessary detail that just took up valuable real estate. Not to mention the writing itself was overly florid. It could have been a fun read, but there's a lot not going for it here that I wasn't about to slog through, even if the book is short.

Dark Secret (Darkhaven Saga Book One) was a great read by Danielle Rose. Ava is a seventeen-year-old spirit witch who has appointed herself as the guardian of the people of Darkhaven. She is on watch for bloodthirsty vampires. She is still new at her powers and needs to gain a better control of them. One fateful night, she may have lost her control forever. Her coven exiles her and finds herself seking refuge with the vampires she's hunted. The longer she spends with them, the more she finds out about how the witches have lied to her. I really enjoyed reading this book and can't wait to read more in this series.

I'm not usually into novellas since there is less time to create the story and I usually find them to feel more rushed if not done properly. I did find this to be the case with this book. Though I do understand that there is more to come.

Our MC Ava is a young witch who hunts vampires. She is reckless and not the most experienced but is determined to protect her coven. She trusts her instincts which present itself as a physical sick feeling even if her mom does not. 

I loved that the author incorporates the Spanish language into the story, as the MC's mother's first language is Spanish. You don't get enough of that in books. However, I think the way it was done can be a bit confusing to readers who don't know Spanish themselves. If you're e-reading and can use translation, that's one thing but if not... And I can see that becoming irritating having to do it too much.

I didn't mind the writing but I found it a little lacking in some areas. Like, we get some really in depth descriptions about witch practices and meditation but (bordering on a how to) but the story itself doesn't get that much attention which is too bad since the book is so short to begin with. 

I didn't really feel a connection to any of the characters and wasn't a fan of the insta love. The author keeps telling you how the MC feels but doesn't want to. It was to repetitive and unnecessarily so.

I'm a sucker for a good witch story but this one missed the mark for me.

I received this book from Netgalley and Publishers in exchange of an honest review. Thank yoh

All you Paranormal, witch and vampire lovers out there alike you are going to love this new series Darkhaven Saga. Dark Secret is book one in this series. I was sucked in from the very beginning. Ava is so strong and fearless when trying to protect her coven from vampires. You feel for her loyalty and drive after she gets attacked. I love how she takes her new change in strives. Ava made one heck of a witch but brings more to being a vampire. I'm really loving Jasik. I can't wait to find out more about him and see if the sparks that him and Ava are putting off become more. I can't wait to see where this series takes us. This book is so good that I couldn't put down.

I don’t normally read vampire books but this one sucked me in I did enjoy the book and now I’m hooked can’t wait for the next book

I found DARK SECRET to be fairly basic and the first person narrative to be rather boring. We are quickly introduced to the 17 year old witch Ava who in a very chatty style throws alot of information at the reader. None of which was anything new, revealing her role as a hunter of vampires. Being headstrong and spunky, she is on the hunt when the novel starts before things go wrong and she is kicked out of her coven and secrets are revealed. I really can't see teens going for this book, it's so old hat, tedious and furrows very familiar ground.

I really did try to enjoy this book, but it felt like a mega crossover between Amelia Atwater-Rhodes and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and not in a great way. I felt like there was a lot of repetitive info dumping within the first three chapters.

Dark Secret is an interesting, but short, book. Ava is a young, self-confident witch that doesn’t draw her power from a traditional source. Ava is a spirit witch, which means she isn’t tied to any one element, time of year, time of day/night where her powers truly peak. She is able to communicate with other spirit witches, like her mother, in her sleep. Granddaughter to the head of the coven, Ava feels like she has a lot to live up to and that it is her duty to protect her coven. As a result, she frequently goes out ‘hunting’ for the witches’ natural enemy, the vampire. Or so she has been told her entire life.

But a run in with a band of rogue vampires on one of her patrols draws attention and her coven is attacked at one of their ceremonies in the forest. Ava makes the desperate choice during the fight, to become a vampire, after the run-in leaves her dying. Her savior, Jasik from the local vampire family she never knew roamed the area.

Now a vampire, Ava needs to come to terms with her new state of being. Her hope is her coven will take her back once she learns to control her thirst…

What did I think?

This book has a lot of potential. It delivers on many fronts and lacks in only a few. Ava’s head strong, self-assured attitude is both an asset and the thing that often lands her in tough situations. The noticeable short falls for me, writing-wise were, the pacing, bouts of repetitiveness and stating the obvious.

This book starts off a bit slow but promises action soon if you just stick with it. After the first initial run in the rogue vampires, the pacing slows right down again until the next run in. After the next run in, it does it again. And again. As a result, every time I hit a slow part and had to stop reading to go back to living my life, I found myself struggling to come back to the book. I never regretted coming back to it once I did, but a little more of an even keel probably would have had me finish this book a lot faster.

The occasional bouts of repetitiveness in both thoughts, actions and word usage does seem to happen a fair bit in this book, but it’s not to any extreme level. it's more of something I merely noticed. Like the constant referral to Ava being sure that her insta-love tendency towards Jasik is because he is her vampire sire. That line is used many times in varying forms.

I only really noticed this last one, explaining the obvious, was bad in one particular spot. Now the part that got me was the explanation that Jasik, his brother and various others are the hunters/defenders of the vampire seethe. This is obvious seeing how they are the ones who rescued Ava and her clan from the rogue vampires, and they are the ones who do patrols, and go out to face threats head on. Did not need that pointed out at all.

What I did like.

How the author explains things. I like an author gives you the facts of things and this author delivers. While its more of a ‘tell you’ rather than a ‘show you’ style I did appreciate the clear descriptions of things, like how all the witches’ powers work, when their powers are at their peak, when their powers are at their weakest, etc.

The author also goes in the gives the reader a quick chakra lesson through Ava’s ceremony prep and explains a little about herbs and such. She also explains a bit about weaknesses for the vampires. I like that. Tell me things I don’t know much about and how they work in this world you have created for me to immerse myself in.

To Sum It Up

As a whole Dark Secret is a decent book that gives the reader a new world to explore that opens the possibility that this could actually, potentially, be going on around us without us 'normal' people even being aware of it. To me it seems like a witch/vampire blend of Twilight and City of Bones when it comes to plot and feel. But that could just be me.

Hopefully the second book offers some more explanations of what is going on between the witches and vampires to make them hate each other so much, maybe some more supernatural creatures and people, and add more development of the characters that we can dive into.

I wanted more pages. It ended way too quickly! I really enjoyed it. It was different and entertaining. A real page turner. Good characters and a fast paced storyline. Would recommend.

There is nothing that draws me to a book more than it being a story about witches. I absolutely love them in all shapes and forms. Unfortunately, this one missed the mark for me. Dark Secret is a very short book, coming in at 184 pages, and while the length of a book doesn’t determine the strength of the story, this one felt rushed and underdeveloped. I really liked where the plot went, but every event moved so fast and we didn’t get enough time to invest in the characters. They were all very surface level and I wished I would have had more to connect with and care about them. I liked the main character, Ava, in the beginning, but she became so wishy-washy as the story progressed and it didn’t make sense. I understood the complexity of the situation that was trying to be portrayed, but the way it was written didn’t accomplish the emotional depth and confusion in a way that felt real. I did love the way witches and their magic were portrayed in this world, and I really wish we could have gone deeper into the coven and Ava’s place within it. Her journey was a tough one, and while we only see the beginning of her arc in this book, there could have been a stronger emotional change for her. In the end, this book had a fun and quick plot, but lacked the character and emotional depth that makes a book feel complete.

A good start for a new series. It's an engrossing and fun read and I liked the world building, the plot, and the characters.
I look forward to reading the next instalment in this series.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.