The Path Keeper by NJ Simmonds

Publication Date: May 28, 2019

Tags: Young Adult, Paranormal/Urban

Publisher: BHC Press/H2O

Pages: 416

★★★

What if all our lives were mapped out before birth? Does anyone have the power to change their destiny?
Ella hates London. She misses her old life in Spain and is struggling to get over her past—until she meets Zac. He’s always loved her but isn’t meant to be part of her story. Not this time. Not ever. Little does she know that his secret is the one thing that will tear them apart and force her to live in a world that no longer makes sense. A world full of danger, lies and magic.
THE PATH KEEPER is a passionate tale of first loves, second chances and the invisible threads that bind us. Can love ever be stronger than fate?

👼 in between young and new adult - our main character is in university but for some reason, I went into this novel thinking it was categorized as YA. It's a bit confusing because the accurate age range of characters would fit the new adult genre but the way Ella acts can feel a bit childish. We don't get a lot about her life before her mother married Richard and even though she says she's unused to the luxurious lifestyle, she definitely uses her status to her advantage with ease. It was a bit hard to take her seriously at times due to how she reacted to several events in the story.

👼 do you believe in fate? - this novel is definitely rooted in the insta-love trope. Admittedly, our MCs have technically been in love for multiple lifetimes but personally, I'd like a relationship that had more substance. It seems like Ella was infatuated with Zac from the moment they met and that was all she needed to know about him was his physique to become completely obsessed with him.

👼 past lives - since a huge part of the plot revolves around individuals having predestined life paths and focuses on what happens when one doesn't follow said path, the way that past lives were interwoven was definitely an important aspect. Personally, the delivery of Ella's past lives was a bit confusing at first because we jumped from present to multiple past lives randomly. The formatting could have been a bit weird due to my copy being an e-ARC but the different snippets of the past took a while to get used to. On the bright side, all the pieces do eventually fall into place and everything makes sense.

have you read The Path Keeper? check out my spoiler thoughts!

  👼 Zac's sacrifice - the ending was...overly dramatic. I felt like we had built up to a pretty decent finale and the ending felt like it cheapened that build-up. It was definitely a very "climatic" event and very Zac-like to choose mortality over murdering his father. I felt like if we had maybe one more chapter that helped the story wind down a bit, it would have made the ending feel more resolute. It seemed as if the author wanted the shock factor to keep readers interested in the sequel rather than keeping readers based upon the personal connection to the plot/characters.
👼 What's going to happen to Ella's mother and stepfather now that she's reunited with Ella's father? - this point was very glossed over and it's something that I hope will be addressed in the sequel. It's just a bit murky and I'm a bit worried about how the author will choose to address it. Also...what exactly did she say to the stepfather to make him marry her? Questions...
👼 Josh (?) and Sebastian - I have multiple things to say about these two characters. Firstly, it felt unfair to Josh (I hope that's his name...) that he was portrayed as such a douchebag. I get that Ella is supposed to be in love with Zac and I'm not a personal fan of love triangles, but the guy never stood a chance. If he was who Ella's path was supposed to include, would she really fall in love with a guy like him? My answer would be no so in my mind his character was redundant.
o For Sebastian, I had a feeling he had done something to Ella to make her dislike him and while sleeping with your new stepsister the night of your parents' wedding is bad and it's revealed that he does a lot worse things to girls (aka he's unforgivable) - his character trope felt...cliched.
o I don't know if I'm being too...picky about how the other "men" other than Zac were portrayed, but all the other "young" guys were portrayed very negatively other than Zac. Which gives off the impression that all men are horrible people unless they're an archangel who lowkey has been in love and stalking you for several lifetimes. Just a thought.

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Does The Path Keeper sound like something you'd pick up when it comes out? 

A quick thank you to NetGalley for providing an e-ARC for review. :)