Fresh New Voice of YA- The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting
"Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the sixteen-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her "power" to sense dead bodies—or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes the dead leave behind in the world . . . and the imprints that attach to their killers.

Violet has never considered her strange talent to be a gift; it mostly just led her to find dead birds her cat left for her. But now that a serial killer is terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he's claimed haunt her daily, Violet realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved by her hope that Jay's intentions are much more than friendly. But even as she's falling intensely in love, Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer . . . and becoming his prey herself."- summary from Amazon

First off, I apologize profusely to Kimberly Derting and I hate that it took me this long to write my review. This was just a busy reading week and then I was gone for most of today at a signing. But let's get on with the review.

I really enjoyed this book, though I felt it dragged at some parts, but that could just be because I was in such a rush to finish it. It's definitely got a fast-paced plotline though (for the most part), and I was turning pages frantically to find out what happened next, not just because of the short amount of time I had to read it. The romance was realistic and cute, but predictable, though the other aspect of the story (the killings) made up for that by being wildly unpredictable.

Just to let you all know, this is not a typical murder mystery. I feel like in those, you get a sense for all the characters and have suspects to look at and figure out who did it. It's not the case with this book since we hardly see the murderer throughout the book so there's no looking for clues to figure it out. It does make it a bit fun because you find everything out along with the protagonist and there isn't a whole lot of sleuthing going on, but at the same time, it's frustrating because you're left in the dark completely until the end. I did enjoy the twist at the end and it had me gasping when it came up.

What I also liked was how every few chapters, we'd get a small glimpse into the mind of the killer. Those chapters were intensely creepy and I was glad that they were short and far between.

One of the things that I didn't necessarily like was the third person. I've gotten more used to it now that I'm reading a lot more, but with this, it made me feel disconnected and made it hard to really feel for the characters.

Overall though, it is a very fun, thrilling novel to read with an intriguing paranormal aspect at the center of it. It does have its flaws, but what book doesn't?


FTC: Received ARC from publisher. Amazon link is Associate link; any profit goes toward funding contests.