Dreamland Review Archive

The Phantom Conspiracy (V)

Title: The Phantom Conspiracy
Author: TypedInk

First Impressions

Note: These are written before I read the story.

Title: The Phantom Conspiracy is simple, yet effective as a title. Mainly because just hearing makes me think of a mystery story. There's a conspiracy and we have to uncover it! Those vibes, which you are clearly going for.

Cover: I love the vector cover, it's simple and sleek. The colors chosen definitely fit the tone of a mystery story, with the reddish brown bricks, off-white coat and dark shadows. The font being a simple sans serif font fits the vector style a lot and it also gives serious vibes, which your title and blurb also share. The only thing I wish is a bit different (and this is really minor) is the knife held by the shadow figure. It's not sharp enough for me, so it doesn't feel that threatening. It looks like a stick rather than a knife.

Blurb: The first line is a bit awkward. Mainly because you put "things only got worse for Giana" which hints at a progression of events. I understand that the line prior to it is the beginning of this progression of things only getting worse for her, but it's a little unclear. You can reword it into something like: "After getting caught up in a criminal case, things only got worse for Giana." Also, I used "caught up" instead of "caught", because using caught implies she did do something wrong and was caught for it. Saying caught up implies she got involuntarily involved, which I assume is the meaning you wanted to convey.

Then you specify the beginning, which is good because as a reader, I now know the setting. It's a small town with a local sheriff, and there's a high-profile murder. If I'm interested in murder cases, then that'll get my attention.

The third paragraph is a bit too vague though. You don't exactly reveal what are these consequences she's escaping from. I can't tell what's her story. She's a suspect, I think? But it's a bit unclear. I think specifying what these consequences are can make Giana's goal look clearer in the blurb. Her goal is escaping. But, escaping what? Without knowing her goal, the conflicts we can gather from the blurb have no impact. We don't need a long paragraph explaining, but we need at least some tidbits of it.

Blurbs need to tell the reader what story they should expect if they pick up this book. So far, you're promising some sort of mystery, but what type of mystery? Is it a murder mystery? Or something else? I can't tell what mystery there is for me to be intrigued about. You can fix this by thinking of two things:

1. What's the goal of the story?

2. What's the core conflict/s of the story?

By establishing your goal, you can see the obstacles in the way (aka the conflict/s) more clearly and based on that, the reader can have a grasp of what kind of story they're about to read.

Here's an example blurb I found online:

"Tortured by grief and loss and fleeing a wrong conviction for a crime he didn't commit, Dr. Richard Kimball struggles to survive while fleeing the relentless lawman who pursues him."

In this blurb, the goal is to survive because of a wrong conviction. There are various conflicts that causes the protagonist to struggle reaching this goal such as being tortured by grief and loss and the relentless lawman. As a reader, my expectations for this story is that the main journey of the plot is him avoiding the lawman while trying to not lose to his grief as he tries to correct the wrong conviction. So, if I want that kind of plot, then I'll read the book.

In comparison, your blurb is too vague. She's escaping, but I don't know what or why. So yeah, try to fix up the blurb, especially the third paragraph.

General Thoughts