Title: The Keeper of Night
Series: The Keeper of Night #1
Author: Kylie Lee Baker
Genre: YA, urban fantasy, historical, Japanese mythology
Publication date: October 2021
Published by: Inkyard Press
Source: Borrowed from library
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Synopsis: 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 really enjoyed this book! One of my favorite things about it was the mythology. I liked how every region's reapers served different deaths: Ankou in Britain, Yanluo in China, Santa Muerte in Mexico, and so on. Our main character Ren is half reaper, half Shinigami, and she's never really fit in with the London reapers. In fact, she was always being bullied by a couple of mean-girl-type reapers, who also happened to be High Reapers, so she was never able to defend herself because that would mean trouble. However, after an incident with these girls and her controllable Shinigami powers, Ren is forced to run away from London. So she sets out to Japan with the support of her little brother Neven, not only in hopes of finding her mother and learning more about her Shinigami side but also to find herself.