The Body Finder - Kimberly Derting

Goodreads Synopsis:

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 that 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 the 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.

Review:

I have been wanting to read this book for the longest time (I admit it’s because of the beautiful cover). I’m so glad I finally yielded. It’s a really an interesting read, a great mixture of thriller and light romance.

The story revolves around Violet Ambrose, a girl who can sense echoes of the dead, most significantly the murdered, and the imprints they leave behind on their killer. A typical girl with regular teenage girl problems (boy crush and school cliques) plus her special hunting ability makes high school a little bit more difficult for her.

Only her family and childhood friend, Jay (who eventually becomes her boyfriend) know about her special skill. They try to hide it to protect her from being the target of a serial killer. At first, she doesn't give it much thought, but when the victims are getting bigger in numbers and start becoming people she knew, she couldn't help but do anything. It troubles her that she is the only one who could help catch this killer (and find the abducted/dead girls) so she tries to investigate by herself, which threatens her life more than once.

While reading some crucial parts of the story, I noticed that it would make for a good movie (maybe deliberately). There were a few twists to the story which I wouldn't have thought of myself, made it a lot more interesting. I will definitely be reading more of Kimberly Derting’s books in the future; but first I’d have to finish this series.