The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker
(Format used for this read: Print–hardback)
A girl of two worlds, accepted by none… A half Reaper, half Shinigami soul collector seeks her destiny in this haunting and compulsively readable dark fantasy duology set in 1890s Japan.
Death is her destiny.
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.
I can not even remember when I started reading this book, yall. 🤦♀️
I know for certain it was WEEKS ago…and possibly even as far back as October!
It took me for FRIGGIN’ EVERRRRR to finish this one!
Which I was HELLA surprised about.
This book had so many things that made it interesting at first glance and also so many things that I love …fantasy, darkness, other cultures, YA genre, beautiful cover art…
But DANG IT, yall….this book DRAGGED.
Part of the reason this took me so damn long to finish is because I couldn’t get more than three pages in every night before I was falling asleep.
To be fair, November and December were busy AF and there was a LOT going on in my household….so I was WIPED by the time I got in bed every night.
But STILL.
This book just did not ever reel me in.
My interest just was not peaked.
I just couldn’t connect with the characters or the setting and I felt like the plot was just kinda wonky and bleh.
Which makes me sad because it had SO MUCH PROMISE!
Yet another time I don’t have much to say in a review except I didn’t enjoy this book….
That’s about it, yall.
This is the first book in a duo and unsurprisingly I will not be consuming the second.
I am soooo glad this one is finally done because I went on a book buying spree after Christmas at my fave local used book store AND at Books a Million’s giant sale….
I have a PLETHORA of books I can’t wait to dig into!
(First up is Britney Spears’ autobiography….reading it as research for an upcoming podcast episode lol)