A great suspensful ride with a fabulous twist and glorious plot. I was riveted to the edge of my seat, holding my breath and quickly devouring the next page to see what would happen.

I love the idea, the premises, the chase. An all around exciting book!

The Keeper by T.F. Allen.
Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC . The book is listed as Horror, Mystery, Thriller. It is indeed all three.

Angel, spirit, or ghost—the Keeper doesn’t know exactly what he is. But he knows he needs to protect Michael Delacroix, a famous artist who is kidnapped and locked in a windowless room deep beneath a Napa Valley vineyard.
The novel is told from the point of view of the Angel, spirit, or ghost—the Keeper. A very engrossing book. Certainly held my attention. I am not sure Of which the Keeper was in the end.

The author wrote a thriller that started with a bang and just kept going! The twists kept coming, so I couldn't put it down. I cannot wait to read more from this author!

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41572011-the-keeper" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="The Keeper" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1543591702m/41572011.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41572011-the-keeper">The Keeper</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2757419.T_F_Allen">T. F. Allen</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2667850634">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book. I was very pleased. The mysterious Keeper must try to protect and save a famous but damaged artist who has been kidnapped. This entity can go into peoples minds and can talk to Micheal, the artist but otherwise has no power in the real world. Then he discovers more people than just Micheal can hear him. The keeper seeks the help of a nun and a reporter, giving them hints to track down the kidnapper. What I enjoyed most was that the two women, the nun and the reporter both had very different but very powerful versions of faith that allowed them to listen to and believe the keeper. Great book. Part mystery, part horror.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/81821123-jen-ryan">View all my reviews</a>

The Keeper, T. F. Allen's debut novel and finalist for the Claymore Award, is a hybrid of the thriller and paranormal genres and brings a unique twist to the same old, same old. This was a wonderfully refreshing tale that was fast-paced and ever so fascinating. The action barely stops and you hurtle along. Before long you realise you've read it all in a single, fun-filled and entertaining session. This storyline makes use of the well-recycled, yet still wholly enjoyable, Good vs. Evil concept, and each of the characters are on either one side or the other of this age-old ruckus. From then on paranormal elements are explored, I don't want to say too much as that would spoil it for potential readers, suffice to say that it's very compelling and immersive.

The complex nature of the plot and the twists and turns that appear throughout both propel the book forward and give you food for thought. Because of some of the twists being rather silly and ever so slightly ludicrous and the killer being a complete madman you need to be able to suspend your disbelief quite heftily here to continue to enjoy it, but what is fiction for if not to push the boundaries? Written in an easy, readable style with an uneasy claustrophobia and touching emotional scenes, this is worth picking up if you're a fan of writers such as Joe Hart, Marcus Sakey and Blake Crouch.

Many thanks to Weapenry Co-Op for an ARC.

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read this book for my honest opinion.
This had to be one of the best books that I have read in quite awhile. It grabbed my attention from the very start and held it to the very end.
As an artist I can fully understand why you would want to destroy a piece of your own work. No one else wou but another artist.
It was so sweet that the nun still came to his side just to let him know that someone cared.
I believe that you have Guardian Angels who speak to you. I loved how it was incorporated into this story (good and bad)

Although the premise is truly unique, the story is just too strange for me. I couldn't get interested in this one.

Interesting premise, just who is this 'spirit' and where does he come from? Why does he accompany the tortured but talented artist as he destroys his most famous work?

Connecting the dots is complex and takes time, and the explanation is ok, if not totally satisfying. A bit too much wavy davy stuff for me, but the explanation makes sense and the ending tied up most of my questions.

I was very impressed by this book. A popular artist destroys his most famous painting for unknown reasons. What follows is a fast paced thriller that has the nun who took him in as an orphan and a reporter following his disappearance guided by a mysterious force.

The book is put together well with twists and turns and doesn't get repetative. There's a lot more here that I don't want to spoil, but I highly recommend.

I went into this book with no idea what I was getting into. I soon thought, "A ghost story told from the ghost's POV...could be interesting." It went beyond that to relationships, connections, and bonds.

Michael has always struggled, he was abandoned at birth, thrown away. But he became a world-famous artist. His most famous painting, that of a woman he had admired but never approached who disappeared one day years ago. When Michael takes a knife to his own painting in a museum, his fame only grows.

But why did he do it? What drove him to create his masterpiece and then destroy it? What happened to Jolene? And who is his Keeper, who watches over him and saves his life?

The twists sometimes were exaggerated and the villain is old school over the top crazy, but who doesn't love that?

Didn’t strike a chord with me this one. It started off with an interesting idea. A voice with a separate identity dwelling in a person’s mind. I was engaged in the development of this character who was revealed at the end of the book as Alexander, Michael’s brother. I felt it could have had more potential if it was a Guardian angel of some sort rather than his own brother.
Also I felt Alexander could have done more than just nudging the nun and Hannah towards the right direction. It could have solved the kidnaping simply just by influencing Donnie’s actions, driving him crazy by filling his thoughts and drowning out Cole’s.
There were some other discrepancies as well like how Michael was portrayed as a lazy artist yet it contradicted the part where if he doesn’t paint in 24hours it means he is missing.

Then there were two other mystic forces introduced; religion and the universe. I’m familiar with these two and have read up about it somewhat. The way these forces work are similar but the book pried them apart and made the individual characters that believed in them unbelieving in the other.

The ending was much better than the rest of the book where Alexander made himself visible. The lighting of a fire was also a smart move when Hannah couldn’t get to a phone. Michael unknowingly painting a picture of Alexander was also very beautiful, although earlier in the book it seemed like he was painting another version of Jolene.

The Keeper written by T.F. Allen was a great surprise for me. This book was listed in the category of horror, mystery and thrillers and the description sounded great, So I was ready to try out a book from a new author to me, and I’m certainly glad that I did. The writing flowed easily and the plot was a welcome difference from other books in the thriller category. From the beginning you will find yourself hooked, when it’s starts with this sentence. “If anyone ever saw me, they might call me a spirit, or an angel, or a ghost. They would try to describe me, but they’d be wrong. Even I didn’t know what I was. I only knew one thing—I needed to keep Michael safe.

This story is too interesting to give away the plot, so this is a taste to get you interested. Michael Delacroix is a famous artist. He is able to pour life into his painting with colors and layers of paint. Someone wants to learn how he does this and Michael finds himself kidnapped and locked in a room with no windows, forced to show how he paints.

Michael lives a very secluded life so when he goes missing the Keeper needs to enlist help to rescue him. As a child Michael was thrown away in a dumpster and a nun, Sister May Elizabeth, found him and named him. She has spent her life protecting Michael so when a voice tells her that he is in trouble she takes it as a message from the voice of God and goes in search of him. The other person who becomes motivated to find Michael is a Sun-Times reporter named Hannah Klein. Hannah has a connection with the universe and she is able to see pictures that the Keeper sends to her to search for Michael.

As the story unfolds we get to know the strengths and weaknesses of the main characters. How they continue to stay on the right path to find Michael even though they don't know how they are being guided. Meanwhile Michael is making his own discoveries that come from his past, and trying to deal with the new revelations. Even the Keeper learns things about himself as he tells us the story.

This is a wonderful story to bring in the New Year. Cozy up to the fire and plan to spend time making T.F. Allen one of your new favorite authors.

I have to admit I"m still not sure how I felt about this book. LOL

The beginning had me hooked enough to keep going and questioning things...the middle kind of dragged out and didn't hold my interest, but I kept reading. The end was somewhat disappointing and maybe that's because the action didn't have the same hook as the beginning...

Well written, good concept, and a unique read...

The Keeper grabbed my attention and didn't let go. Michael Delacroix is a well know artist who for some unknown reason has destroyed his most famous painting, Jolene. Michael isn't alone when he raises his knife to Jolene though, because he has a constant supernatural companion, the keeper. When Michael is kidnapped, only the keeper knows who took him and where he is being held. With no physical presence, how can the keeper communicate what he knows and save Michael? When he manages to get an elderly nun and a journalist involved, the race is on to save Michael.
There isn't much more I can say without entering spoiler territory. The pacing was good and I read this one quickly because I wanted to understand the keeper's origins( and hoped to find out why Michael destroyed Jolene). This was a well written and engaging debut and if you like mysteries with an otherworldly aspect, I would recommend this book.
I received a DRC from Weapenry Co-Op through NetGalley.

I really enjoyed The Keeper, it had an easy reading pace and the story gripped me from the first page, it has a good supernatural element with the keeper, he is a spirit that guides and protects Michael Delacroix, a famous yet reclusive artist who has decided to destroy his most famous work, "Jolene", a painting of a girl who went missing seven years before and then when Michael goes missing, the keeper tries to find someone to help Michael and the only people he can connect to is the unlikely pairing of a reporter and a nun.

I won't state any more as i don't want to give to much away, but T F Allen has written a book that races along at a great pace and the characters are likeable and as a debut novel I think it shows great promise for any thing else T F Allen writes.

I enjoyed reading this book. It had a good story to it. I liked the variety of characters in it. It is my first book by this author. I hope to read more books by this author.