18 January 2016

Dark Days Club (ARC Review)

Lady Helen: Dark Days Club | Alison Goodman
Published by: Walker Books, January 21st 2015
Genre: YA, Historical, Paranormal, Demons
Pages: 496
Format: Ebook
Source: Walker Books

London, April 1812. Eighteen-year-old Lady Helen Wrexhall is on the eve of her debut presentation to the Queen. Her life should be about gowns and dancing, and securing a suitable marriage. Instead, when one of her family's housemaids goes missing, Lady Helen is drawn to the shadows of Regency London.

There, she finds William, the Earl of Carlston. He has noticed the disappearance, too, and is one of the few who can stop the perpetrators: a cabal of powerful demons that has infiltrated every level of society. But Lady Helen’s curiosity is the last thing Carlston wants—especially when he sees the searching intelligence behind her fluttering fan. Should Helen trust a man whose reputation is almost as black as his lingering eyes? And will her headstrong sense of justice lead them both into a death trap?

In The Dark Days Club, internationally best-selling author Alison Goodman introduces readers to a heroine who is just as remarkable as Eona—and yet again reinvents an establlished literary genre, making it her own.
 

Dark Days Club is one of the best books I read in 2015. The writing is so detailed and brings the Regency Era to life, and the characters are compelling and interesting. I was hooked from the beginning.

Lady Helen was a surprising character. She's an active, intelligent woman in a time that only wants passive, vapid women, but she's realistic. She knows there are things she can get away with and others she can't. More than other Regency ladies I've read, I really felt like she could have been a real girl from that time. I liked her relationships with her friends and with Lord Carlston, and I especially loved their interactions and slow romance. Carlston is seriously swoon-worthy but he does make more than a few mistakes - he keeps far too many secrets and uses those to manipulate Helen (which was a dick move even if it was to save the world...)

The fantasy element of this book was really good - the demons are unique and imaginative and seriously disgusting. There was a weird, bizarre part involving soul sight energy or something but the rest of it isn't nearly as strange. I don't really have anything bad to say about this book, other than Helen's uncle made me inclined to murder, but the sexism is to be expected from a Regency man.

Exciting plot full of Regency detail, tension, and a secret demon fighting society. Loved it so much.

Characters 
Setting/world 
Writing 


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