Here’s the blurb;
“June 1812. Just weeks after her catastrophic coming-out ball, Lady Helen Wrexhall—now disowned by her uncle—is a full member of the demon-hunting Dark Days Club. Her mentor, Lord Carlston, has arranged for Helen to spend the summer season in Brighton so that he can train her new Reclaimer powers. However, the long-term effects of Carlston’s Reclaimer work have taken hold, and his sanity is beginning to slip. At the same time, Carlston’s Dark Days Club colleague and nemesis will stop at nothing to bring Helen over to his side—and the Duke of Selburn is determined to marry her. The stakes are even higher for Helen as she struggles to become the warrior that everyone expects her to be.”
The Dark Days Pact doesn’t suffer from a lack of intrigue and action. Far from it. Whereas The Dark Days Club was a little slow to get going – the author needing to show just how constrained society was for women at this period of time – Book 2 neatly sidesteps the problem by having Lady Helen learning to walk and talk just like a man, and indeed the descriptions of her being dressed as both a man and a woman, highlight just how ridiculous fashion was during the Georgian period.
As soon as that’s been accomplished, Lady Helen finds herself caught in the middle of a number of different intrigues as she tries to please everyone, and initially, fails quite magnificently.
If anything, my only slight problem with the novel is the Duke of Selburn, who quite simply, gets in the way time and time again. As others have mentioned – you can’t help wondering if he is The Great Deceiver but that is not answered in this novel, and possibly won’t be for a good few to go.
Bring on Book 3!
This is a Young Adult book but I was drawn to the first novel because of its historical setting – the early 1810’s. The author provides a fascinating glimpse of high society at the time and manages to weave contemporary events into the story in a deft fashion. I hoped it would amuse my own Young Adult in the family who is a huge fan of the Shadowhunters series (I prefer the series set in Victorian London), and it worked it’s magic, so much so, that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is now being read. As such I think it appeals to those who like historical fiction with a slight twist, and also the younger generation, although some of the words are a little strange and I did have to point out that there was a dictionary on the kindle to look up what the words meant. Some of the storyline is also a little risque for the younger of the young adults but on another level it works to highlight how much has changed in society in the last two hundred years and how much more accepting today’s world is of well, almost everyone!
You can buy it here but read Book 1 first!
MJ Porter 