Darker Days by Jus Accardo – a Review

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Description:
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.

Review:

Darker Days by Jus Accardo is the first book in her YA The Darker Agency series.  This is the first time that I have read anything by Accardo, and was for the most part pleasantly surprised.  I’m not sure what I expected, though the premise is what drew me to the book, but Accardo has a knack for putting snark in her leading character, and I found myself laughing quite a few times.  Jessie Darker is our heroine in this story, and she reminded me a little of Charley Davidson (Darynda Jones), or my all time favorite, Buffy.  What makes those series so good, is the humorous or sarcastic comments.  When we first meet Jesse her quips were either funny, or at times downright silly. Though there was some comparison to Charley or Buffy, Jessie Darker isn’t quite there yet, but she does have potential.   

Darker Days is a young adult paranormal story, with Jessie and her mom running a private investigation agency for the unusual, like demons.  Jesse is only a teenager, but she has learned from her mom, her family history, and her own growing ability.  Jess does become too flippant at times, causing her mom to chastise her often. We meet Jessie as she handles a dangerous ghost, and a demon dog; fixing the problem.  Jessie’s mom prefers Jessie to live like a normal teenager, but the Darker family for hundreds of years,  have always been involved with fighting supernatural beings.  

It is at this time, we meet our hero, Lukas Scott, who comes to the agency to talk to Jessie’s mom asking for help.  It seems a box that contains the seven deadly sins has been opened, with the sins on the loose creating havoc all around town.  They are able to possess any human body, especially those that have some of their traits…for example Greed.  They have 5 days to find the sins, and get them back into the box, or they and their human body will be reclaimed, thereby causing the death of those humans. It turns out that Lukas is a human, who has been locked in the box as Wrath for almost 150 years.  He manages to keep Wrath in somewhat control most of the time, and wants to help get everyone back into the box without harming the humans.  Of course, Lukas wants to find a way to free himself.

What follows is an exciting adventure with Jessie and Lukas working together, and Jessie’s mom working separately with the help of Jessie rarely seen demon father.  During the race against time, both Jessie and Lukas come up against the major villain, who is a very powerful witch; who has her own agenda.  The witch is also the one who forced Wrath into Lukas, putting him away for all those years.  With all the danger surrounding them, including friends that have been infected, Lukas and Jessie become closer.  At first Lukas, who didn’t ‘get’ Jessie’s constant slang’s, was confused, but then he found himself attracted to her, as she as unlike anyone he had ever known; and he wanted to have a chance to find out more about her. Will they be able to save Lukas from spending the rest of his life in the box? 

Personally, I am not a fan of declarations of love in a matter of days. I prefer a slow buildup, with substance, and found this romance to be ok. Though I really liked both Lukas and Jessie individually; I just didn’t feel like their romance was real, but there is a lot of potential.  Will Lukas and Jessie’s relationship have a chance?

There were a lot of surprises, twists, action and danger in the last 1/3 of the book, as they race to the final day. As this is a series, we can expect to see a lot more of Jessie Darker.  I enjoyed this book, as Jus Accardo has created a great new heroine in Jessie, who is a fun kick assed heroine.  For the most part, I loved her snarky comments, but I also think some of them need to be toned a bit.  If you enjoy Young Adult; a fun and tough stubborn heroine; and a hot hero, then Darker Days is perfect for you.

Reviewed by Barb