Review: The Body Finder (ARC) by Kimberly Derting

Title: The Body Finder
Author: Kimberly Derting
Hardcover: 336 pages
Published: March 2010
Reading Level: YA
My Copy: Book It Forward ARC Tours
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 wicked stars

Blurb (from Amazon.com):

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. 

My thoughts...

The Body Finder is an intense thriller with a sweet romance woven in.  I finished this book pretty quickly because I wanted to get to the end! While it was predictable in some spots, it wasn't in others so it keep my attention until the end.  Violet has an ability to sense when something has died (and I think that it is mostly tragic and/or sudden deaths) by an echo that they emit...and it affects her deeply until that body is put to rest.  This is something she inherited from her Grandmother so her family is accepting of this oddity of Violets and trusts her judgment.

When Violet finds a body at the lake and other girls closer to home start disappearing she wanting to help find the killer, because those that kill emit an echo of their own that is similar to the person/thing they killed.  Of course getting involved in the search also had a tendency to put the spotlight on yourself, so you can imagine the trouble she gets in with that.  Mixed in all the murders and bodies is the intense attraction she has started feeling to her best friends for years, Jay.  Convinced that he doesn't feel the same, Violet is tormented by being around him when she is missing all the signs he is giving her.

I really enjoyed this book and finished reading it pretty fast.  Kimberly Derting has the sequel coming out in 2011 titled Desires of the Dead, and I can't wait to read it!  If you haven't picked this up, do...it is a great mystery/romance and you will love it!