When a 200-year-old witch attacks her, Lainey Styles is determined to find a logical explanation. Even with the impossible staring her in the face, Lainey refuses to believe it—until she finds a photograph linking the witch to her dead mother. Lainey discovers that she, like her mother, is a Keeper: a witch with the ability to unlockthe Grimoire. But there’s a problem. The Grimoire has been stolen by a malevolent warlock who is desperate for a spell locked inside it—a spell that would allow him to siphon away the world’s magic. With the help of her best friend and a street fighter, Lainey must leave her life of college prep and studying behind to prepare for the biggest test of all: stealing back the book.
| Amazon | Waterstones |
Keeper
Kim Chance
Keeper wasn’t an awful book, but it often felt way too familiar and had a few problems with the actual writing of the book. My main issue was how repetitive it got. Here’s some examples:
- Ty says ‘You ready for this, Styles?’ Twice in one page.
- Repeats ‘as if she couldn’t even see him’ in the body of the text and then Lainey whispers it to herself literally in the next line.
- ‘The thought of being alone and on my own both terrified and thrilled me’ – alone and on my own mean the same thing..
I think I stopped counting this about 20% in (I read an ebook) so this is just too much. You can really clearly see that this is a debut novel, I hope the author will do better for the rest of the series.
It also felt extremely familiar in a way that I know the author has read and watched a lot of fantasy. Lainey was a very typical MC who found out she has powers when she comes ‘of age’. She actually calls herself Styles, which just immediately reminded me of Stiles in Teen Wolf. Someone literally says ‘You’re a witch, Lainey’, which seems like its pulled straight from Harry Potter. And just the majority of the plot line felt unoriginal. Even with Maggie spouting superhero info felt like the author was showing off her own knowledge of comic books.
On the topic of Maggie, she was an amazing secondary character and best friend. She was faithful and helpful to Lainey and I live for great female friendships shown in books. I also love that she wasn’t shoehorned off when the romance subplot came about and she will definitely be in the next book. What I didn’t like was the romance subplot (yes I know I say this about every book but I just don’t enjoy unnecessary romance plots okay???). Ty was the cliched protector of Lainey, who was kind of brooding and hot and just an all round stereotype love interest. And I hated him.
The book really picked up its pace towards the end of the book, but it did feel like this was because Lainey took too long to develop into our heroine. Because of this pick up however I found the final part really exciting and intriguing. There were some great plot twists and I would probably pick up the sequel because of them. But this is more of a ‘I’ll pick it up if I see it’ rather than a run to pre-order kind of interest.
POSITIVES
+ Female friendships
+ Plot twists and pick up near end
NEGATIVES
– Repetitive writing
– Romance sub plot was boring
– Unoriginal
I received Keeper by Kim Chance from the publisher via Netgalley. This is an unbiased and honest review.