The premise – excellent. The settings – fantastic. The adventures – gripping. In case you couldn’t tell, I really enjoyed The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker.
It’s super exciting to see a morally grey main character. Ren is determined to do whatever it takes to be a Shinigami, which can make her come across pretty selfish at times. She is constantly torn between doing what she needs to do in order to achieve her goals and what she knows is right and decent. I love that her brother is the little voice of reasons she so desperately needs at times. After meeting with the Goddess of Death, she sets out on a series of three tasks to earn her place in the goddess’s court, with her brother and a mysterious underworld assistant, Hiro.
The romance did feel a little bit rushed and I wasn’t 100% sold on Hiro. It just kinda felt like he was bopping along, just there for the adventure of it all. He seemed to be a pretty surface level character and I never felt the connection. It was a tad too insta-love for me.
I loved the lore scattered throughout the story, explaining how these Yokai came to be. You put a story within a story and I am hooked. The writing was lovely and vivid and brought the world to life. The adventures were exciting and the magic was well thought out and developed throughout the course of the book. I didn’t want this story to end!
But uhm.. what the heck was that ending?! I’m going to need the next book the ~second~ it releases. Everything at the end was such a blur of epic events taking place one after the other. I certainly did not anticipate anything that transpired in the final few chapters. Baker sure knows how to end on a cliff hanger.
** It’s also important to note there are so tough elements to this story. There is plenty of blood and gore and, obviously, death. There is also on-page animal death (which I absolutely hate reading).
About the Book
Half British Reaper, half Japanese Shinigami, Ren Scarborough has been collecting souls in the London streets for centuries. Expected to obey the harsh hierarchy of the Reapers who despise her, Ren conceals her emotions and avoids her tormentors as best she can.
When her failure to control her Shinigami abilities drives Ren out of London, she flees to Japan to seek the acceptance she’s never gotten from her fellow Reapers. Accompanied by her younger brother, the only being on earth to care for her, Ren enters the Japanese underworld to serve the Goddess of Death…only to learn that here, too, she must prove herself worthy. Determined to earn respect, Ren accepts an impossible task—find and eliminate three dangerous Yokai demons—and learns how far she’ll go to claim her place at Death’s side.
About the Author
Kylie Lee Baker grew up in Boston and has since lived in Atlanta, Salamanca, and Seoul. Her work is informed by her heritage (Japanese, Chinese, & Irish) as well as her experiences living abroad as both a student and teacher. She has a BA in creative writing and Spanish from Emory University and is pursuing a master of library and information science degree at Simmons University. In her free time, she plays the cello, watches horror movies, and bakes too many cookies. The Keeper of Night is her debut novel.
