The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman

The Dark Days Club (Lady Helen Trilogy, #1)

by Alison Goodman

The first book in the dark and compelling Lady Helen trilogy, set during the Regency period, will appeal to teenagers and adults alike. London during the Season is a whirl of balls, dinners and promenades – and, for a select few, the relentless battle against demons.

Jane Austen's high society and Cassandra Clare's supernatural underworld collide in the first book in the Lady Helen trilogy, perfect for fans of historical fiction and fantasy.

London, April 1812. Lady Helen Wrexhall is set to make her curtsey to Queen Charlotte and step into polite Regency Society. Unbeknownst to Helen, that step will also take her from the glittering ballroom of Almack's and the bright lights of Vauxhall Gardens into a shadowy world of demonic creatures, missing housemaids and deadly power.

Standing between those two worlds is Lord Carlston, a man of dubious reputation and infuriating manners. He believes Helen is destined to protect humanity, but all he can offer is danger, savagery and the possibility of madness. Not the kind of destiny suitable for a young lady in her first London Season. This delightfully dangerous adventure of self-discovery and difficult choices has all the unnerving dark magic of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and the swashbuckling action of The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Reviewed by Empress of Sass on

3 of 5 stars

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2.75 /3

Well this didn’t live up to my expectations byte plot dragged, the characters were forgettable and it was way too bogged down in tedious descriptions of social custom and clothing. For an almost five hundred page book, not much happened. I think more time was spent discussing impending social occasions and then attending them then any actual demon hunting or Dark Days Club world building.

Helen is a blank slate of a protagonist. We’re constantly told how intelligent, brave and spirited she is but honestly I just didn’t see that. She was reluctant at every turn and seemed to only care about being ordinary- except that she didn’t even really want to commit to that either, what with not wanting to marry either. I got the impression she really did not know what she wanted.

The two love interests are cardboard cutouts. There’s not much substance there. We learn pretty much nothing about Selburn, and Carlston is a bad boy with a secret, but we never learn anything about that secret.

I’ll carry on with the series in hopes that this was a slow beginning, but just know that while this book is marketed as a demon hunting Austen-like regency story , it lacks the charm and wit of Austen and the demon hunting aspect is severely underdeveloped.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 12 February, 2019: Finished reading
  • 12 February, 2019: Reviewed