A good start to the duology. I love how dark this novel was, the reapers are supposed to be performing a job but some of them seem to take an unnecessary interest in that job. Ren has a lot of anger issues from being bullied and made to feel like an outsider by the reapers, including her own family. It will be interesting to see if Ren deals with this anger in the second book or uses it to attain her goals. Looking forward to reading book #2 The Empress of Time. ( )

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.

In The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker, Ren Scarbourough is a girl caught between two worlds. Half British Reaper, half Japanese Shinigami, she and her brother, Neven, are never accepted in Britain. When things fall apart and she decides to go looking for her mother and a place among the Japanese Shinigami she finds an adventure and fairy-tale horror awaits in the dark.

Read the rest of my review - https://bythecoverreview.com/2022/02/28/review-the-keeper-of-night-by-kylie-lee-... ( )

*E-book ARC received from the publisher through NetGalley - thank you!*

Ren Scarborough lives and works in London - as a Reaper, collecting souls at the moment of death. But she's never been accepted there, because she's only half Reaper. Her mother was a Shinigami. She's managed to make a life despite being an outsider, but when bullies hurt her and she reacts, exploding a light and blinding them, she knows she has to leave before she's killed by the High Reapers for her actions. With only her brother, Neven, with her she leaves for Japan to try to find acceptance there.

I loved the premise and the elements of Japanese mythology that were included in the book. It's truly original, and the only similar book I could think of was [Grave Mercy], but the comparison is superficial. [The Keeper of Night] is much darker and descriptively violent. Ren has always felt like, and been treated like, and outsider and she's angry about it. Her brother, Neven, was my favorite character: a soft heart, despite being a Reaper, and someone who truly loves his sister, though she can be cold and calculating. The love interest was a little forced, but the author does a good job of creating tension of should she or should she not trust him. ( )

A dark story with a unique plot. Take a half Japanese, half British girl who believes her Japanese mother abandoned her. She's bullied and looked down upon by the 'pure' British Reapers. Even her father who remarried, is cold and aloof. Her only bright spot is her half brother, Neven. When other girls torment her one too many times, she snaps, using a power they don't have, to save herself, injuring the meanest of the lot in the process. This is the beginning of a desperate escape, accompanied by Neven, that ends up in Japan where she must learn to play by an entirely new set of rules with a cast of creepy and unreliable players. Following her as she does so, not always successfully, makes foe an engrossing read. I'll be eager to see what the second book offers up. ( )