Serena’s Review: “The Dark Days Club”

Book: “The Dark Days Club” by Alison Goodman

Publishing Info: Viking Books for Young Readers, January 2016

Where Did I Get this Book: the library!

Book Description: 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?

Review: I always love it when I can find cross-genre novels that mix two of my favorite things. In this case, we have Regency era historical fiction and dark fantasy. Getting right down to it, I loved this book! And it served as an example of something that I had never been quite able to put my finger on when it came to my frustrations with other similar stories.

Lady Helen, a young woman just now entering into her first season as a lady of society, has worked her whole life to shake of the scandal of the death of her treacherous mother. Or…at least so she’s been forced to do by her Uncle, the man who controls her vast fortune and, along with her more kindly Aunt, has housed her since her parents’ deaths. But, of course, something dreadful must happen to set our protagonist on the path to becoming a heroine (line paraphrased from “Northanger Abbey” cuz why the heck not, it’s spot on in this case!). She runs astray of the even more scandalous Lord Carlton, a man rumored to have murdered his wife, though no body was ever found, and she discovers that she inherited from her mother a set of powers that belong to those destined to fight the demons that walk among them, disguised as average people.

Getting back to my point earlier, this book excelled in something that I had never been able to quite put my finger on when I attempted to explain why certain historical fantasies failed to hit the mark. What it gets down to is this: obvious extensive research done by the author. This book isn’t a paper thin veneer of a historical fantasy, it’s a thoroughly researched tale that combines the detailed aspects of this time period’s culture alongside its fantastical elements, never letting the magic and adventure wash away its historical foundation.

As one bookclub member and I discussed, this is the kind of book that you can read and come away from with an assortment of little tidbits about the time period that you wouldn’t have know before. For example, a gentleman who asks a lady for the last dance in the first set before the supper period is expected to walk that lady to her seat and sit near her. Thus, this gentlemen is expressing an even more active interest in the lady by requesting this particular dance! Fun Regency fact! So, in summary, this book fully embraces the historical aspects of its story, instead of simply appropriating convenient aspects for the sake of fitting into a popular genre than immediately discarding them in lieu of all the fantasy action, as too many have done before it.

Lady Helen herself is also very true to her time. While she is extremely intelligent and often frustrated by her Uncle’s very unfortunate views on a woman’s place, she’s also been raised to be a lady and a wife, and, if not thrilled about this prospect, accepts that this is the direction her life is headed. And, when suddenly presented with this demon-hunting alternative, she’s rightly wary. She’s been trained to run a household, converse with society, and manage other domestic duties. All notably free of risk of bodily harm and death. So when she’s told she’s a demon hunter and that said demon hunters face constant danger and often lead a life where their duties lead to eventual madness, she’s not jumping in head first. I really appreciated the fact that a primary arc of this story is simply Lady Helen fully coming to realize the choices before her and making realistic decisions with the knowledge that she’s given. At times it was frustrating as a reader, since we all know where things will end up, but it was also a very good character study of how a Regency era lady would struggle with these realizations, her own intelligence and curiosity be damned.

The fantasy elements were also much more dark than I was expecting. There are your run of the mill demons, and then you have the ones here who infect every layer of society, taking advantage of and feeding upon the worst aspects of humanity. There were several scenes that were straight up gruesome.

One last note on the historical accuracy of the books. The author included a very good afterward where she discussed the research that went into this book. It was fun to see how diligently she tried to incorporate the real life politics and goings-on of the time within the story. The newspapers that were referenced were real papers, the murders that take place really did happen (if, perhaps, not caused by demons). I always appreciate hearing about how an author approaches their work, and this was a particularly interesting example.

Rating 8:  A great example of well-researched historical fiction that doesn’t become overwhelmed by its fantasy elements.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Dark Days Club” is included on these Goodreads lists: “Regency Fantasy” and “Mysterious London.”

Find “The Dark Days Club” at your library using Worldcat!