Review : Darker Days by Jus Accardo

Summary (from Goodreads)

Title : Darker Days (The Darker Agency #1)
Author : Jus Accardo
Publication Date : August 19th 2013
Publisher : Entangled Teen
Goodreads - Amazon 

Jessie Darker goes to high school during the day, but at night she helps with the family investigation business. Cheating husbands and stolen inheritances? They’re your girls—but their specialty is a bit darker. Zombie in your garage? Pesky Poltergeist living in your pool? They’ll have the problem solved in a magical minute. For a nominal fee, of course...

When gorgeous new client, Lukas Scott, saunters into the office requesting their help to find a stolen box, it sounds like a simple case—until the truth comes out. The box is full of Sin.

Seven deadly ones, in fact.

They’ve got five days to recapture the Sins before they're recalled by the box, taking seven hijacked human bodies with them. Easy peasy—except for one thing...

There’s a spell that will allow the Sins to remain free, causing chaos forever. When the key ingredient threatens the life of someone she knows, Jessie must make the ultimate choice between love and family—or lose everything.

Personal Thoughts

Jus Accardo is one of my favorite YA paranormal authors and after 3 successful books from her, I've vowed to read everything that she writes in the future. When I found out about her new series coming out, I was beyond ecstatic because I knew that she would deliver yet another fantastic series I could fangirl over. Darker Days has to be one of the best YA paranormal books I've read in a long time.

Jus Accardo's strongest point is her characterization. She proved in her Denazen series how good she was at taking her time to develop her characters' personalities so as to flesh out complex characters that are easy to get attached to. She did the very same thing here with Darker Days. The main character, Jessie, was a fun-loving girl armed with attitude. It was a total delight being inside her head. She was down-to-earth, full of sarcasm and humor, so it was hard not to love her. What I loved mostly about her though was her good nature. She went to lengths, even risking her own life, to protect the people that she cared for. I admired this personality trait of hers and by the end of the book, Jessie had become one of my favorite YA characters. Lukas, the love interest, was also a lovable character. After reading multiple Entangled Teen books I've come to the conclusion that they must have a requirement when they pick up a book for publication : the book must have a swoon-worthy hero. And Lukas was no exception. Sweet, caring and goofy at times, Lukas has to be one of the nicest YA love interest I've come across. As much as I love my bad-boys in my YA novels, I seem to have a greater attraction to the nice ones. His interactions and banter with Jessie were a blast to read about especially because they are different in personality to some extent with Jessie being a little fiery. I loved how the secondary characters, especially Jessie's mom and dad, played such a crucial role to the plot. It's nice to see a YA book where the parental figures are aware of the supernatural beings and are themselves part of the world, so I very much appreciated that.

I have to say, this author sure does come up with some original ideas. Who would have thought that it was possible to write a book out of the Seven Deadly Sins! The Seven Deadly Sins! Just how cool is that? I know I was completely amazed by the uniqueness of the plot line. The plot developed beautifully and Jus Accardo's world building and background-building were strong. It was clear and easy for me to immerse myself in the world she had vividly crafted. She definitely excels at world-building and Darker Days is proof to that. I think my only complaint when it came to this book was the fast pace the romance between Jessie and Lukas develops. I like my romance to develop at a nice and slow pace so I can feel the build up, but in Darker Days, Jessie and Lukas do fall for each other a little too fast. However, that did not mar my enjoyment of the book because like I mentioned above, I loved Jessie and Lukas' interactions. One of my favorite aspects of Darker Days was the strong relationship between Jessie and her mother. The love and care that the two had for each other was palpable in all the scenes they appeared together. I was a huge fan of Jus Accardo when I started this book, so I had no doubts that her writing in this would be phenomenal. Her prose has an addictive quality to it and once you start reading, you're hooked until you turn the last page of the book. Plus, the writing in this book was laced with her signature humor that made this book even more entertaining. She is a highly talented writer and I can't wait for more from her.

Fresh, original and addictive, Darker Days is a book for all those who are tired of the typical vampires, werewolves and angels of the current YA paranormal books. The brilliant characters, the entertaining plot line and the addictive writing style will have you devouring this book in a matter of few hours.

Rating

Cover : 4/5
Plot : 5/5
Characters : 4/5
Writing : 5/5

Thank you to Entangled Teen for the e-ARC of Darker Days!