The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

The Body Finder

By Kimberly Derting

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

Pages: Hardcover, 327 pages

Publisher: HarperTeen (March 16, 2010)

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 had tired of playing with. But now that a serial killer has begun terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he’s claimed haunt her daily, she realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet on her quest to find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved to find herself hoping 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.

Kimberly Derting’s debut novel was absolutely brilliant! The plot was one like no other and kept you on the edge of your seat throughout the read. There was even one point that COMPLETELY threw me for a loop (I even tweeted about it to Kimberly). The characters development and the relationship between Jay and Violet was completely realistic because it was written so purely. They are best friends who are both denying the fact that there is something more there. I love that type of relationship because they are often looked over for the “he’s hot-she’s hot” relationship. It kept me interested throughout the entire read and it was hard to put it down.

I love the concept of Violet being able to sense the dead through echos and imprints. Kimberly did a magnificent job describing each one and how Violet sensed them and kept me completely fascinated by this from the beginning to the end. There is a vast amount of crime TV in today’s market which I watch entirely too much of, so this story was right up my alley. In my journal I was keeping track of the clues for the killer and I must say… I guessed right (I’m not going to post a pic of my journal though because that would give too much awayJ). The suspense, thrill, mystery, love, and two separate POV writing will enthrall and entice you to keep turning the pages to find out who the killer is and how Jay and Violet deal with their ever evolving relationship.

Make sure to visit Kimberly here and see what she has going on with writing the sequel to this book… Desires of the Dead! She just got the cover in the other day. Isn’t it pretty?!

Happy reading all!