Review: The Dark Days Club (Lady Helen #1) by Alison Goodman

Title: The Dark Days Club (Lady Helen #1)

Author: Alison Goodman

Published by: Viking

Released: 2016

Source: Library

Summary: Lady Helen Wrexhall lives in 1812 England. Her main concerns in life are attending parties, visiting friends, living the genteel life, and procuring herself a good marriage. She is a lady of her time. Helen then starts realizing she's not a normal girl, and her hearing has gotten sharper. With the miniature her mother left her, she can see the life forces surrounding people.

She discovers that her mother was part of the Dark Days Club, a group dedicated to ridding the world of evil, demon-like creatures called Deceivers. Helen has inherited her mother's abilities, which is extremely rare. Helen must now decide where her destiny lies, does she become a Reclaimer, even if it means giving up her good name? It's hard to be a genteel lady and a demon hunter all at the same time.

My Thoughts: I was super excited to see this book on my library shelf, and I had to snatch it up. I'd heard the buzz about it on booktube, and it sounded like something I'd really enjoy. In the end, my feelings about The Dark Days Club are kind of mixed.

I feel like I got drawn in by the book media hype and was a little let down. It wasn't exactly as epic and awesome as I thought it was going to be. I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it like I thought I was going to. 

My real main issue with the book was that it was soooo slow and drawn out. At first, I was okay with the slow pace, because I thought it was just build up and introduction to the main story. I was sure as soon as the demon aspect got introduced, it would turn into an action-packed adventure. Unfortunately, that never happened, the story just stayed slow. I also felt that it was too long. Too many pages with not enough going on.

What this book really is, is just an overlong introduction to a new series. It just sort of touches on the action that I hope is to come in the next book.
Probably my favorite part of the book was the historical, Regency England feel. The author did a lot of research, and you can definitely tell. I've always been a fan of Regency Romances, so I enjoyed getting that time period in this book. It did make me realize though how boring a lady's life in that time was. They didn't really have a lot to do. Their time was mainly filled with going to parties, visiting with acceptable people, and dressing up in the fashions of the time. Women didn't have a lot of freedom and weren't really allowed to be themselves.

I had a lot of questions about The Reclaimers and The Dark Days Club that never really got answered. What caused Helen's abilities to appear when they did? When was she going to get the training? Why in this whole book were there only two fights with demons? Also, I really wanted to know what happened to Lord Carlston's missing wife Elise. With the number of times she was mentioned, I wanted some sort of answer.

I also thought that the Regency and the demons never really came together. They never meshed well, and felt like two separate entities. I thought it was cool what the author was trying to do, but it just never came together and felt like a success.

I also didn't get the out-of-nowhere love interests. It seemed after pages and pages of Helen being uninterested, suddenly she was smitten. It just felt weird.

In the end, I just thought The Dark Days Club was an okay read. It didn't turn out to be exactly what I was hoping for. I liked it enough to check out the sequel when it comes out. It really just felt like a long, slow introduction to a new series. I wish I had loved it more.

BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 3.3/5

A little too long and slow