Alison Goodman

"In April 1812, as she is preparing for her debut presentation to Queen Charlotte, Lady Helen Wrexhall finds herself in the middle of a conspiracy reaching to the very top of society, and learns the truth about her mother, who died ten years ago"--

The Dark Days Club

"Captivates with a mix of history and fantasy. [An] immersive, action-packed narrative.” —USA Today's Happy Ever After From the New York Times bestselling author of Eon and Eona; a Regency adventure series starring a stylish and intrepid Buffy-esque demon-hunter London, April 1812. On the eve of eighteen-year-old Lady Helen Wrexhall's presentation to the queen, one of her family's housemaids disappears-and Helen is drawn into the shadows of Regency London. There, she meets Lord Carlston, one of the few who can stop the perpetrators: a cabal of demons infiltrating every level of society. Dare she ask for his help, when his reputation is almost as black as his lingering eyes? And will her intelligence and headstrong curiosity wind up leading them into a death trap? * Includes a bonus Dark Days Club novella! *

Vicky (A City Girl's Thoughts)

This is an exciting, excellently written, fun coming-of-age story about 18 year old Helene Wrexhall who must decide whether she should join The Reclaimers (demon hunters) to save humanity or remain in the comforts of her society’s expectations. Alison Goodman has definitely thrown herself into researching the Regency Era, making sure most of her setting remains historically accurate – include her writing – so I felt as if I was immersed in her world! The detail, the dialogue, the action, the characters – PERFECT! There is romance (A LOT) but it doesn’t distract or take away from the main plot, just smoothly and subtly popping up at the right moments!

Christianity plays a major role in this story but its kind of separated from the demon hunters. I don’t understand why The Dark Days Club, name of The Reclaimers, won’t work with Christian churches. That was never explained. Also, the magic used to kill the demons – was that a mix of dark and light magic? Alchemy is spoken of, but in this setting I’m guessing it works? A little? But to what extent? Also, there isn’t any Steampunk 🤔 for those wondering, Steampunk is Historical Fiction-Fantasy, a.k.a technology that doesn’t exist during that time period. MOST of the history is accurate, but where’s the out-of-time technology? Plus, did Helen REALLY have to fall in love with Lord Carlston? He's her COUSIN! SMH 😤😡

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5. Again, excellent writing and storytelling, but the plotholes confused me.

Siya S

3/5 Stars

I hated this book at first (OK hate is a strong word, try strongly dislike), but ended up liking it so much I decide to keep my eyes open for the next installment of the series.

This book seems to grasp all genres in one; fantasy, action, paranormal, historical romance, horror (gore!) and even slice-of-life . No components of the story seems to be outstanding in particular. Rather, everything has been composed and blended in a way that assures a satisfying grunt by last page and not a vigorous fangirling squeal. In other words, it’s good, but not in an aggressively memorable way.



I find the detailed description of settings (no doubt a rich and satisfying evident of a well-researched piece of literature) was impressive of course but a the same time absolutely DRAGGING. There were endless descriptive paragraphs on dances, ball gowns and marriages. It made the story super slow-paced and I wondered most than a single-digit of times when the hell shits would about to get real or there would be such moment at all.

On the bright side, a great chunk of this book dedicated to a clash of ideas: self vs social expectation.


  “I am no warrior, sir, nor do I aspire to be. I have been taught to sew and sing and dance, and my duty is to marry, not fight demons. Look at me: I am an Earl’s daughter, not a man versed in swords and fisticuffs"


Helen was a girl torn between her duty and the expectation from judgmental misogynic dinosaurs that ran the society in 1812 (e.g. her uncle). Goodman has truly transported us (through her delightful writing) back to the time when the term ‘feminism’ was just a fart of somebody’s imagination. It will feed you loads of food for thought (e.g. how much the world has or hasn’t changed over the course of 200 years). Some statements, if made in present day, would definitely raise a lot of eyebrows.


  “How does it work?” 
“I don’t think you would understand.” 
“Please, I would like to know.” She hesitated, then took the chance and admitted, “I read quite widely.”
He gave a small, dismissive shrug, as if to say that her impending female confusion was not his fault.


Impending female confusion???? *slow blink* What the hell is that?

The characters are great, though not much of a development. Lady Helen was just like every YA fantasy protagonist ever: an underdog who has special power that turned out to the the first of its kind and the fate of humanity has found its way into her tiny hands. Surprisingly, she’s not annoying about it at all. In fact, her reaction upon the knowledge of her power quite made sense.


  “You seem to be saying that I have only one choice: to be a Reclaimer,” Helen said, sitting straighter. “I do not see why that must be so. I may have these abilities, but I do not have to use them. Surely, I can just step away and live a normal life.”


It’s all about choices. Juggling between balls and suitors and demon-hunting. I like that.

OK, can I say something here? Excuse my weird brain but every time I read something set in Regency era (or any era for that matter) my brain seems to automatically assign Keira Knightley as the face of the heroine. She just has the face for it, really.



Well, she really does.

Names and names and names will be introduced, but in the end only a few really mattered. I like Darby and her unwaived loyalty towards Lady Helen but, just like most of the supporting characters, was quite one-dimensional. And Lord Carlston, omg I was in love with him a little bit. (but then, is it just me or the romance between him and Lady Helen was a bit…unconvincing? I was like…err say wha?) Oh, and just like every other questions raised in this first installment, everything about the guy is still dark and mysterious as ever.

I still couldn’t grasp much of the devil-hunter essence from this story. Hopefully it’s getting better in the next book. More action and more kisses please! Speaking of kisses, yes some romance were hint but anything worth squealing happened for only a good chunk of 1 page. Bleh.

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Anna

ENFIN J’AI FINI CE LIVRE !
J’ai mis un temps fou à le lire, j’ai jamais vu ça. Mais ça s’explique par le fait que je n’avais pas le livre papier mais en ligne, donc c’était beaucoup moins pratique et agréable !

J’ai beaucoup aimé l’histoire en elle même, car je suis fan des œuvres se déroulant dans l’Angleterre du XIXe, dans le milieu de l’aristocratie et des énigmes (Moriarty the patriot >>>). Seul bémol c’est que les chapitres sont longs et du coup c’était dur de tenir parfois, ce qui est également une autre raison de pourquoi j’ai pris du temps.

Je ne sais pas quand je lirai la suite, en ligne en tout cas c’est sûr, mais j’ai hâte de savoir comment ça va évoluer !

Haley Murray

jess

I'm really sad that Alison Goodman's writing style isn't really my thing, because her plots and characters are so good. It's just that she's wordy and tends to drag on. This book could have been a lot shorter. It took a good 200 pages to get to the interesting part. It's so interesting when it does get there though.

Sequel to New York Times bestselling author Alison Goodman's acclaimed The Dark Days Club—a smashing combination of Buffy and Jane Austen! Summer, 1812. After the scandalous events at her presentation ball in London, Lady Helen has taken refuge at the fashionable seaside resort of Brighton, banished from her family and training as a Reclaimer with the covert Dark Days Club. She must learn to fight the dangerous energy-wielding Deceivers and prepare to face their master, the elusive Grand Deceiver. As she struggles to put aside her genteel upbringing, Helen realizes that her mentor, Lord Carlston, is fighting his own inner battle. Has the foul Deceiver energy poisoned his soul, or is something else driving him towards violent bouts of madness? Either way, Helen is desperate to help the man with whom she shares a deep but forbidden connection. When Mr. Pike, the hard bureaucratic heart of the Dark Days Club, arrives in Brighton, he has a secret mission for Helen: find the journal left by a mad rogue Reclaimer, before it falls into the hands of the Deceivers. Coerced by Pike, Helen has no choice but to do as ordered, knowing that the search for the journal may bring about Lord Carlston’s annihilation.

The Dark Days Pact

Julie D.

3 out of 5 stars
I truly dislike Selburn and the entirety of the book was waiting for Helen to knock him out ughhhh

3.5 out of 5!
The pace was pretty slow but eventually it hooked me and I flew through it

"Lady Helen has retreated to a country estate outside Bath to prepare for her wedding to the Duke of Selburn, yet she knows she has unfinished business to complete. She and the dangerously charismatic Lord Carlston have learned they are a dyad, bonded in blood, and only they are strong enough to defeat the Grand Deceiver, who threatens to throw mankind into chaos. But the heinous death-soaked Ligatus Helen has absorbed is tearing a rift in her mind. Its power, if unleashed, will annihilate both Helen and Carlston unless they can find a way to harness its ghastly force and defeat their enemy."--Provided by publisher.

The Dark Days Deceit

2.5/3

It's been months since I read the first two books so I went into this not really remembering anything and it definitely made it hard to actually get through the first hundred pages.

(view spoiler)[the urge to punch selburn has transferred from one novel to the next. (hide spoiler)]

Vera Sokolyanskaya

This book is why I joined FYA book club - to read books which I normally wouldn't have read. Other reasons - An Ember in the Ashes, My Lady Jane, Illuminae.

This is one weird book: it's painfully slow until about 3/4 into the book, it uses paranormal explanations and doesn't really explain any aspect of the deal in full, it has a love triangle and in the end, leaves you hanging with more questions than answers but I immensely enjoyed it.
I can't really explain it - I'm not a big fan of that era (but to be honest I'm more familiar with this era in Russia than any other country), it has a big Jane Austen feel to it (and I haven't read a single Jane Austen book even though I tried several times), the main character spends the most of the book undecided (don't blame her with all the sexist environment around her)...

But the style was enjoyable, the story kept throwing in different questions (view spoiler)[ (how did Helen's Mom die? what does the Queen have to do with it? what's special about Helen's abilities and why? What happened with Carlston's wife?)  (hide spoiler)], the main character is likeable and (confession!) I liked Lord Carston despite everything. May I also mention that it feels like the author did an excellent job with the research for this book. 

It did remind me of The Diviners series (i.e. paranormal series set in historical era) but that series has more characters and a wider story.

I'm still on the fence whether I will read the next book but I will definitely check out the review to understand whether its pace it better, other than that really looking forward to it.

Katie Holem

When I first read the summary of this book I was really excited to read it. But for some reasons I could not get into this world. Around the 200 page mark, I just gave up on reading the book and just listened to it on audiobook for the rest of the book.

laura

Strong start to a new series. I love the world that was created and the characters that we met. I was such a fast pace read. I wanted a bit more action scenes centered around helen but i love the world building.

Southern Today Gone Tomorrow

Written by Alison Goodman, author of the Eon series, The Dark Days Club follows Lady Helen Wrexhall as she learns that she is more than human while being a lady in the early 1800s.

I did not finish this book. I highly doubt I will ever go back to finish it. Eon was a fantastic book that was unique and captivating. This novel was just so slow and… while the idea behind it was unique, the execution just felt forced and rather hard to get through.

The characters were interesting, but all of the time spent discussing clothes and getting dressed and just… it was very slow. Too slow for me.

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Abi Baker

amore mio

probably more like a 3.5 because it was a slightly disappointing, predictable end but my good hets really ended up doing that!

holy biscuits this series is intent on giving me everything but also somehow ripping out my heart and stomping on it. i cannot believe that it ended with (view spoiler)[lady helen bonding with carlston but engaged to selburn and with elise alive (hide spoiler)]. i love helen so much and she’s such a strong protagonist who’s absolutely fascinating. she makes some really tough decisions in this book and this entire world is utterly enthralling. absolutely cannot wait for the third book!!

Celia Adams

The thing that kills me is Alison Goodman is a good writer.....she just takes entirely too long to tell a story.
The cover and description for Dark Days club drew me in, but honestly, if I'd realized off the bat it was the same author as Eon, I may have hesitated a bit more. This was a mammoth booth to tackle, and the difficult thing was, even though the page count was high as nearly 500 pages, the real reason it took a lot of effort to get through was I wasn't really compelled by the story at all. Helen Wrexhall is a relatable, good-natured protagonist, but she wasn't actually interesting. She wasn't unique, and she wasn't the typical 'defy the norm, fight the system' female protagonist we've gotten used to seeing in Regency fiction. The love story was unnecessary, and I'm not saying that in a "oh books don't need romance to be good" kind of way. In a "you literally just plopped this in here because you could it does nothing for the plot but makes me cringe" kind of way. The supernatural element is well-thought out but not well explained with a few definite plot holes. 
All that being said, I did find some elements of the book enjoyable. Bad guys like Benchley and the Deceivers were interesting, and background relating to Helen's mother Catherine was fantastic. I loved the Regency language and customs inserted in the book, and reading it I really felt we were in the early nineteenth century watching all this happen. Goodman's ability to write is fabulous, I just wish I cold be more a fan of her storytelling

Paige Morgan

Fun light reading, though I confess I was hoping for something that would wow me more than this did.

Laura

Je viens tout juste de le terminer et comment expliquer à quel point j’ai dévoré et savouré en même temps cette beauté! J’ai préféré ce deuxième tome qu’au premier pour l’absence de longueurs. Je suis encore bouleversée par la fin de ce tome...Je n’ai plus qu’à attendre que la suite me tombe dans les mains! Je trouve que dans ce tome-ci on voit bien l’évolution des personnages de Helen, Darby. Ce livre fait pas mal appel à l’inégalité homme-femme du XIXe siècle et j’ai adoré le fait que Helen se batte sous n’importe quelle apparence pour prouver sa valeur qu’importe son sexe. J’ai tellement hâte de lire le dernier tome!

Wren Hardwick

I’m sorry but not sorry about the unpopular opinion that’s about to be typed onto this review: I cannot get on the Carlston fan-wagon. I am so team Selburn and I will forever dream of him winning the hand of Helen. Carlson just is way to broody, which would usually work for me but man is he a guard dog. Selburn is/was/still is too but his isn’t as like animalistic to me? I’m not sure. All I know is Carlston is still technically married and that should be a red flag to Helen.



The Dark Days Club still absolutely loathes Carlston (which I think kind of draws Helen to him even more than usual) and they are wanting to do anything to get him out of their neat little club even though he is the best they have. But at the end of the last book, after some unfortunate events, he is becoming a little... darker. He can’t really control it either, but The Dark Days Club will use anything they can to get what they want.

I just liked the parts including the brothel (and no, nothing like weird about it. I just like the neat little preteen we meet).

This series is really unique and I am going to continue! It’s just really thick with details and sometimes I’ll find myself thinking of something else and realize I didn’t really miss that much.



---

Slow burn... but good burn. RTC.

I absolutely loved this book.

The world building was so unique and beautiful. There was such detail in every word that Alison Goodman put in there. I usually am not the biggest fan of Regency Era books, but it's books like this that make me believe I am born in the wrong Era.



There were like two different words building for me because I am not that knowledgeable in this Era as I am in others. So I was learning more about that while learning more about the paranormal-side gracing the story.

Helen is our heroine and she lives with her aunt and uncle since her brother is old enough to live on his own and her parents died at sea. Her mother is a traitor to the country, so her aunt and uncle are big on her not mentioning/dwelling on her bloodline when it comes to being presented to the court as being eligible for marriage.

Carlston is recently back from the continents. It wasn't proven, but there is a wide belief that he killed his wife four years prior to the start of the book. Helen is not drawn to him at all (hallelujah), but he is drawn to her.

Selburn is a dear friend to Helen's brother Andrew, and a Duke. He has a very colorful history with Carlston and does not like that he is back in town, nor does he like that he is drawn to the same girl that he is drawn to. Is there a reason why they are both drawn to her?

Helen realizes that there is more to the story of her mother the traitor. 

“You have far more courage than you think you do.” 

Helen realizes that there is a different world out there that she is suppose to be apart of. There is a part that depends on her. But what if she doesn't want that responsibility? What if she wants to just be the wife of a household with kids and throw house parties for her husband, instead of killing inhuman beings, lying to those she cares about and never fully knowing if she is going to make it to the next day? 



What if she had a choice?

What I really liked is that even though she has some suitors and such, she doesn't really have more than one? There isn't really a love triangle; but you do end up questioning who you want her to end up with. 

It isn't really focused on the love-aspect of it. It's more focused on Helen's inner-battle on if she wants to wave off the destiny that has been thrown in her lap or if she wants to take it by the hand and help mankind. 



This book was very melodic and beautiful. It isn't a very face-paced book, but I was never bored when reading it. I think this book covers an entire month's worth of time. I loved everything about it. If you like Pride and Prejudice type-settings with a little Shadowhunters thrown in there for a good fantasy-like measure, then I think you should pick up this book.

Coralie | she/her

5/5
Well. I'm okay. Totally okay.
OH MY! THAT WAS SO GOOD! I NEED TO READ BOOK TWO RIFHT NOW, I ALREADY MISS LORD CARLSTON. 
Yup. I'm absolutely okay.

More seriously:
This book is an absolute good read. Everything was so good: the universe, the characters, the plot. THE WRITING! I am in love with Alison Goodman's writing. That's it.

The Dark Days Club

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