Blurb
Denise Winters has everything she ever wanted-a charming husband, a beautiful brownstone in a quiet neighborhood, and a life built on routine and quiet elegance. Her husband, Jovan, is a man most women would envy: attentive, successful, and meticulous in everything he does. But when a local woman is found strangled in her apartment-with a ribbon tied neatly around her neck-Denise begins to unravel the tightly woven threads of her marriage.
It starts small: blood in the sink, vanishing trash, and sleepless nights beside a man who doesn't blink when he lies. As she pieces together fragments of the truth, Denise is plagued by a terrifying question-has Jovan always been this way, or has she been blind for years?
As secrets emerge from the shadows of their picture-perfect home, Denise must decide how much she's willing to sacrifice to uncover the truth-and whether she's too late to save herself.
But the deeper she digs, the more she realizes, Jovan doesn't make mistakes. He erases them.
Original (First 500)
The first time Denise suspected her husband might be a murderer, he was standing barefoot in their kitchen, humming a tune she didn't recognize, while blood trickled down his wrist and into the stainless-steel sink.
She had just come in from the rain, hair plastered to her face, heels in one hand and the grocery bags dangling from the other. The house had been too quiet. No TV. No music. Just the steady tick of the grandfather clock in the hall, and the faint, almost melodic sound of something dripping.
That's when she saw him. Her husband Jovan.
His dress shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and the fabric speckled with tiny red droplets. The kitchen smelled faintly of bleach, something sharp and unnatural layered over the clean scent of lemons from the diffuser she had left on that morning.
Her breath caught, "Jovan?"
He turned slowly, like he hadn't heard her come in. Like he was returning from somewhere extremely far away.
"Oh. You're home early." His voice was calm and steady. It almost sounded...bored? He glanced at his wrist following her line of sight, then back at her, smiling faintly, "I cut myself chopping ginger. I didn't even notice."
Denise's gaze dropped to the knife on the counter -- long, glinting, its edge smeared red. There was no ginger on the cutting board. There were no vegetables. Hell, there was no sign of cooking at all.
"Let me see." She stepped closer, ignoring the goosebumps crawling up her arm. The cut was shallow, more a scrape than a gash, but there was something about the angle that did not make sense. It didn't look like a slip. It looked like a slice. It was clean, almost intentional.
Jovan pulled away, chuckling. "It's nothing. Go shower, D. You're soaked."
And that was all he said. He rinsed the knife and then dried it. He then placed it in the butcher's block like nothing even happened. That night, for some odd reason, Denise could not sleep.
Jovan lay beside her, his breathing slow and rhythmic, his hand resting heavy on her waist. But she stayed awake, eyes wide in the dark, replaying the moment over and over, wondering what he'd really been washing down the drain. Or if that actually was his blood.
But that feeling hadn't started there.
No, if she was honest, the unease had been blooming for weeks -- subtle, like the first scent of rot perfume. There were the missed calls, locked drawers, and doors. A strange call from his office saying he hadn't shown up for work. The neighbor's cat was found dead behind the hedge. Small things. Disconnected things. But they'd begun to collect, like stones in her chest.
It was easy at first to explain why.
Jovan was brilliant and intense. A man who carried secrets in the spaces between his words. She had fallen for that -- his mystery, his restraint, the way he made the rest of the world feel like background noise.
Critique
The blurb is amazing. A woman who suspects that her husband might be -- what? From the blurb, it's hard to tell that she suspects him of murder. "Betrayal" to me, usually means cheating, so the dead woman could be his mistress. But blood in the sink, vanishing trash, and a husband who erases his mistakes -- that is sinister. I wasn't sure if the blurb was vague because it was going to turn out that her husband was innocent, but the first line dispelled that illusion.
"The first time Denise suspected her husband might be a murderer, he was standing barefoot in their kitchen, humming a tune she didn't recognize, while blood trickled down his wrist and into the stainless-steel sink." Oh, my GOD. WHAT?! THE FIRST TIME?!?!?!
Now, I've been lulled into a false sense of good writing by a great hook and a stellar opening line, before, but the rest of the excerpt was also really good.
Lines like this, "Small things. Disconnected things. But they'd begun to collect, like stones in her chest." -- this is beautiful. This is such a relatable feeling, and such a creative expression of it. I love that. The combination of the author's sparse scene setting and characterization with the sometimes poetic lines makes for some really evocative writing.
No piece of writing is perfect, so we'll get into some nitpicks, but this is mostly a showcase post, to share what it looks like when an author nails the opening to their story.
SettingThe kitchen has lots of great detail. Stainless steel sink, knife with blood on the edge, a chopping board with no ginger or other damn vegetables, the smells of bleach and lemon and -- something else. We don't spend any time on the decor, only the important parts of the scene. This is great because if we got the entire layout of the kitchen, the appliances and colors and design choices, this would feel too relaxed. Instead, we keep the focus small. The sink, the cutting board, the blood.
We also have the scene setting before we get to the kitchen. The too-quiet house with the grandfather clock, the sound of something dripping -- which is probably her, because she's soaking wet and carrying grocery bags. Or, it's his blood, dripping into the sink.
Later, they're in bed, and we don't get a sense of the layout or decor, but we do get his hand heavy on her waist. Then we're in her head, adding up the sense of unease that led to her walking in on him and his bloody arm. The call from his work saying he hadn't been in, the dead cat, the locked drawers and doors.
Because we're in an ordinary setting; a house, a kitchen, a bedroom, small clues like a stainless steel sink and a lemon-scented diffuser, I'm picturing upper middle class, nice apartment or house, clean, probably not a lot of personality. Like, lots of beiges and grays, sleek lines, etc. And unless this turns out to be incredibly incorrect later, we don't need any more detail than this when we first walk in, especially with what we're walking in on.
CharacterizationWe're not getting deep with these characters, which makes sense because he's hiding something, so he's all surface charm (and then asleep), and she is freaked TF out. Survival mode strips us of all personality. So, here, again, the author isn't trying to tell us too much, to assure us that these are going to be interesting characters by giving them witty banter and working into the conversation every in-joke they have. It's nice restraint.
But, we still learn plenty about them. Denise is non-confrontational, but she has a deep intuition. She's known something was wrong for a while, but hasn't been able to put it all together. She has incredible attention to detail, from sounds to smells. I love the note that there are no signs of cooking, just a bloody knife on the cutting board. Also, that the cut looks intentional, not like an accident.
And we learn about him, that whatever he was thinking about when he was washing his blood down the sink was intense enough that he didn't hear her come in, probably grocery bags a-crinkling. Also, it says a lot that he doesn't even try to sell the ginger lie, he just deflects, sending her off to shower.
And, I don't know. Is it possessive of him to fall asleep with his hand on her waist, or is that sweet? In any other circumstances, it might indicate intimacy, but with her not feeling super close to him, it comes off as creepy and controlling.
Conflict/TensionOh, yes, there is conflict. First, we have the visual of blood, the obvious lie about the ginger, the fact that the cut looks intentional -- and all of this juxtaposes with him speaking so calmly and just throwing out his nickname for her, "D". (Note that I think in prose, it reads better for someone's intially nickname to be spelled out, like Dee, but that's a personal preference.)
We also have the growing sense of unease, the weirdness going on with him and around them (dead cat, his workplace calling, etc.) It would be enough to just start a story with, "The first time Denise suspected her husband might be a murderer," but the overall sense of unease pervades the entire passage.
Final Thoughts
Here's a small nitpick. I tend to prefer scene setting to be in chronological order -- like, don't start in the kitchen, then describe the whole house, then back to the kitchen. But I understand the author's need to start with a killer opening line, and the line comes with Denise seeing her husband in the kitchen. So, I would just keep the focus on the kitchen. We don't need to know what the house sounded like when she got home. Stay in the moment.
Here's what I'd do with this part of the passage (not changing the wording, just the order of the sentences).
The first time Denise suspected her husband might be a murderer, he was standing barefoot in their kitchen, humming a tune she didn't recognize, while blood trickled down his wrist and into the stainless-steel sink.
His dress shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and the fabric speckled with tiny red droplets. The kitchen smelled faintly of bleach, something sharp and unnatural layered over the clean scent of lemons from the diffuser she had left on that morning.
Her breath caught, "Jovan?"
She had just come in from the rain, hair plastered to her face, heels in one hand and the grocery bags dangling from the other.
This way, the description of Jovan is all together, which makes for a more powerful visual, and it also means that Denise was so distracted by the scene that she forgot that she was soaked through.
We also don't need a line like, "That's when she saw him. Her husband Jovan." because she introduced him as her husband in the first line, and when she says his name a second later, it's just puts both pieces of information (name and relationship) twice in the same short passage for no reason.
Another small thing -- I almost love this line: No, if she was honest, the unease had been blooming for weeks -- subtle, like the first scent of rot perfume. If we dropped "perfume", I think that would work. If we absolutely had to keep "perfume", maybe we could go with "rotting" instead of "rot". Actually, if we ended the sentence after "weeks", it would be a great sentence. We don't really need a simile to add to the metaphor.
And my favorite line, of course, is the first one. I love that the husband is barefoot. Being barefoot is such a vulnerable state, it should evoke coziness, safety, but it's juxtaposed with the introductory, "The first time Denise suspected her husband..." -- it's great. I also love the humming, and the fact that she doesn't recognize the tune. So many tiny details that add up to this sense of impending doom.
My biggest nitpick about this excerpt is that the opening line is not fulfilled within the opening scene. The opening line commits the cardinal sin of over-promising.
It's Jovan's own blood that he's cleaning up. We can see the cut. We have the rest of these five hundred words (at least) where, at worst, he cut himself on purpose and lied about it. So, what about this scene makes Denise suspect that he's a murderer? Even her rumination on him missing work and the dead cat don't really add up to him being a murderer
Now, none of this is a dealbreaker for me. It's a great line, the scene we get is still really good. However, there was a sense of letdown as I read the excerpt that wouldn't have been there with a different opening line. The easy fix would be to change the opening line and letting the story be a slower burn. Walking in on your husband washing away blood in your kitchen sink with no vegetables in sight is still really dynamic scene to start a story with.
But what I would want to see, is a scene that fulfills the promise of the opening line. Seeing the cut is what really undercuts the promise here, so the quickest fix would be to have Denise not see the wound, have Jovan "hide" it. And the knife could be there, but clean. So, all she sees is the blood speckling his shirt and smells the bleach. It would still be iffy to go from blood in the sink to suspecting that the husband is a murderer, but we can trust Denise's intuition on that.
Jovan can cut himself after she leaves to take a shower, and she wouldn't know for sure when it happened. So, the setup for whatever comes later would still be intact, but Denise's suspicion wouldn't seem so out of nowhere.
Okay, all nitpicks done. I thought that this was a really interesting way to start a story. I love that the blurb holds back so that the opening line can punch the reader right in the face. I'm intrigued by the concept of a woman finding out her husband is a serial killer and having to survive coming to that knowledge.
