Let's play...Q&A with Alison Goodman

London, April 1812. Eighteen-year-old Lady Helen Wrexhall is on the eve of her debut presentation to the Queen. Her life should be about gowns and dancing, and securing a suitable marriage. Instead, when one of her family's housemaids goes missing, Lady Helen is drawn to the shadows of Regency London.

There, she finds William, the Earl of Carlston. He has noticed the disappearance, too, and is one of the few who can stop the perpetrators: a cabal of powerful demons that has infiltrated every level of society. But Lady Helen’s curiosity is the last thing Carlston wants—especially when he sees the searching intelligence behind her fluttering fan. Should Helen trust a man whose reputation is almost as black as his lingering eyes? And will her headstrong sense of justice lead them both into a death trap?

In The Dark Days Club, internationally best-selling author Alison Goodman introduces readers to a heroine who is just as remarkable as Eona—and yet again reinvents an establlished literary genre, making it her own.

I was lucky enough to ask Alison Goodman a few questions about The Dark Days Club (out now!), you can read my review for it here, if you like to read reviews and whatnot.

What was the strangest thing you came across while researching the setting of The Dark Days Club?

The first highly publicised serial killings occurred in the Regency. The Ratcliffe Highway murders occurred just before Christmas 1811 and involved two separate incidents that left seven people bludgeoned to death. The story ran for weeks in the newspapers in lurid detail and shocked all of England. A man was finally arrested—John Williams—but he hanged himself in his cell before he could be brought to trial. Now, this is the bit that really fascinated me: the authorities paraded his body through London on a cart so that everyone could see he was dead, then buried him at a crossroads with a stake through his chest so that his ghost could not rise again. Not exactly what the police would do these days! 

If you were Lady Helen and you had the same choice to make, which choice would you choose? (Trying to be as vague as possible because of spoilers)

Spoilers are definitely a problem here, so I’ll just say that I think I’d probably go a bit bananas if I had to lead the life of a Regency lady – all that sitting around and sewing. I’d choose the other option. Then again, maybe I’d end up bananas with that option too–all that uncertainty and danger.

 

If there was a demon in a celebrity or public figure you didn't like and had to kill, who would it be?

I’m going to keep that to myself…on the grounds that it may incriminate me.

 

If The Dark Days Club was optioned for film/TV, who would be your main casting?

I love playing this game. For Lady Helen my dream casting would be Daisy Ridley (Star Wars). For Lord Carlston, either Aidan Turner (Poldark), or Henry Cavill (Superman), and for the Duke of Selburn, Laurence Fox (Lewis) or Paul Bettany (Avengers Age of Ultron).  

*cough* I now love Lord Carlston more. *cough*

Can you give us three things to expect in Lady Helen #2? 

Book 2 is set in Brighton during the summer social season so you can expect bathing boxes, bawdy houses and betrayal! 

I for one, am so excited for the next in the Lady Helen series.

 Have you read The Dark Days Club yet? If you have, what choice would you choose?