Review: Darker Days (The Darker Agency #1) by Jus Accardo

A huge thank you to Entangled Publishing for giving me an ARC copy of this novel in exchange for my fair and honest review.

Darker Days (The Darker Agency #1) by Jus Accardo

Dani's rating: 5 stars

Overall rating: 5 stars

Format: e-book

Pages: 332 (in PDF format)

Publication Date: August 19, 2013

Publisher: Entangled Publishing

Goodreads synopsis:

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

Dani's review:

I was ecstatic when I received an email from Entangled telling me that I had been one of the names randomly picked from a giveaway to receive an ARC of Darker Days! I had heard good things about Jus's Denazen series, but I never got around to read it. This is the first novel I have read by Jus Accardo, and I was definitely NOT disappointed.

Darker Days began with Jessie Darker, a badass, hilarious, and spunky girl, arriving at a posh neighborhood.  She got on her mom's bad side and naturally, was given a punishment. But this is not your normal punishment. Nope, no grounding, phone privileges taken away, or anything like that. Her horrid retaliation for pissing off her mom is to get rid of a zombie floating in a prissy, rich, leopard print bikini wearing lady's pool. Oh, and the zombie is the lady's deceased husband.

I was hooked on this book from the first sentence. Jessie's running commentary on what she thought of each and every person, place, or thing she saw made me LOL so much! Jus Accardo did a fantastic job creating Jessie's personality and voice as Jessie narrates the story in first person. Jessie is a great, strong protagonist who isn't afraid to say what she thinks even if it lands her in boiling water.

The action really begins to start when the smokin' hot Lukas Scott steps in Jessie and her mother's front door. Lukas wants to enlist their help in trapping the 7 deadly sins, which have accidentally been set loose on the world. If you're Catholic or Christian, you've probably heard of these guys: Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth, and Wrath. But here's the catch; Lukas is Wrath. In a bizarre turn of events that will be revealed when you read this novel, Wrath took over Lukas's body while he was human. However, Lukas's resolve is so strong that he manages to maintain some control over his actions.

I loved reading about Jessie and Lukas's encounters with the other Sins as they ran around town trying to save the world while making several hilarious and even deadly mistakes. It was refreshing to finally read a paranormal YA book where the parents, in this case Jessie's mom, know about the supernatural creatures. Jessie and Lukas's romance was so, so, sugary sweet with a cherry on top. There was no insta-love in the room. The two seemed to fall together naturally as if it was meant to be. (I know, "mean to be" is a cheesy phrase but I still love it.)

As the synopsis above says, "Jessie must make the ultimate choice between love and family—or lose everything". The ending was incredibly heart-stopping because Murphy's Law(Look it up if you don't know what this is please) struck again and everything that could have gone wrong WENT WRONG. Jessie needed to make a literal deal with the devil. Okay, not Lucifer himself, but one of his minions. Either way, everything depended on Jessie's ability to keep her wits about to save the people she cared most about.

I loved every single nuance about this novel. It was bursting with blood pumping action, snarky humour and sarcasm, and characterization so awesome and well developed that readers will feel like the characters could jump out of the pages and start having a conversation! If you want to read a novel with an amazing plot full of twists and turns, a swoon worthy guy, and a snarky heroine, I suggest you buy Darker Days now.

P.S. Don't you love the cover? I look the color scheme; it creates this whole supernatural feel. And the cover model for Jessie? She's perfect! She embodies Jessie's personality wonderfully and has the "Don't mess with me or else" look down. Love! :3

~Dani