Review – Dark Days Deceit (Lady Helen, Book 3) by Alison Goodman (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 544 pages
Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
Release Date: November 20, 2018
ISBN-13: 978-0670785490
Stand Alone or Series: 3rd book in the Lady Helen series
Source: Bought
Rating: 3/5 stars

“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 LigatusHelen 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.”

This is the third and final book in the Dark Days series. This was by far the slowest book in the series. It ties everything up decently but was a bit of a slog to get through. In general I was disappointed and thought it could have used much better editing.

Lady Helen is preparing for her wedding to the Duke of Selburn and training with Lord Carlston as part of the dyad that is supposed to defeat the Great Deceiver. It’s a lot to take on and the Duke is constantly pressuring her to start taking on household duties in addition to her duties for the Dark Days society.

This book was very very slow. It really doesn’t pick up until the last 15% or so. The characters spends a lot of time traveling from place to place and dealing with day to day Victorian necessities. While I don’t mind some of that, I found that very little else happened in this book and it was very hard to stay engaged with. This is the type of book where you could skip 10 or 20 pages if you wanted to and not miss anything of import.

I also got very tired of Lady Helen’s wavering back and forth. She basically wants everything without making any compromise and this made her very exasperating as a character. In fact most of the characters in this book were very frustrating to deal with and read about.

The story is decently tied up and the end of the book is well done. The writing style is easy to read, but the story just drags.

Overall this was my least favorite book in the Lady Helen series. It was just way way too slow; this book could have been half the length it was and been much better. Additionally a lot of the characters got very wishy washy in this book which was frustrating. I would tentatively recommend this series if you enjoy Victorian fantasies. However, be prepared to fight through some lackluster and boring scenes.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– New Release Reading Challenge
– Goodreads Reading Challenge