As important as it is to support authors - especially debut authors - during their book releases, one of the things I hate about reading books when they first come out is that I have to wait an indeterminable amount of time before the sequel is released. While Keeper might be able to be a standalone, I need the sequel before I feel the story could be fully wrapped up.

Kim did a fantastic job with her debut novel, and I’m excited to see how her career progresses. Keeper was a fast-paced, easy read and I was surprised (in a good way) with how entertaining and enjoyable I found it to be. Kim has a knack for storytelling and I look forward to reading more of her work.

I am a huge fan of world building, and Kim managed to create an expansive, believable world in Keeper. While we only got a glimpse of the world’s possibilities, I’m excited to see what else we get to discover in the sequel. Keeper read as if every detail had already been thought out, and the reader only learned new details about the world as more information was required. This gave us world building that was well paced throughout the book.

My favorite part of Keeper, other than the world building, was Lainey and Maggie’s relationship. From being wonderful examples of friendship to each other (both showed instances of putting the other first for something that was important to them) to their witty banter, everyone needs a Lainey or a Maggie in their life. Or both. Definitely both.

While reading Keeper, there were a few issues that popped up that I hope Kim fixes in her future work. First, many of the chapters seemed to skip ahead in weird intervals. Either the chapter skipped ahead too much time or didn’t skip ahead enough, but these transitions read awkwardly, to the point where I had to reread the last page or two to see if I had missed any details that would make the transition smoother.

There were also a few misspellings and missing quotation marks (which you can even find in well-established author’s works, so it wasn’t that major), but one of my biggest issues was the misspelling of “Nazgul” from The Lord of the Rings (found as “Nozgul” in the book). I feel this should have been caught in one of the rounds of edits that I know Keeper went through. While the reference only appeared once near the beginning of the book, it is popular enough that I’m disappointed the misspelling slipped through to publication. However, none of these issues prevent me from looking forward to the sequel, and I hope it gets announced soon!