The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

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 as least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt 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 murder-- 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 Rating: 8/10

My Thoughts:
I had looked at this book on Amazon a couple of times, but never tried it because it sounded depressing and morbid, and I was worried that Violet would be dark and depressing as a character. However, eventually the hint of a love story (and a desperate need for new reading material) finally drove me to reserve this book at my library. Upon finishing it I was pleased to discover I was wrong about the excessively morbid story and characters and instead discovered an interesting murder mystery with a bit of a supernatural twist, and a pretty good love story to boot.

Honestly, I loved both Violet and Jay. She was a girl who was coping with a rather dark ability, but still managed to find the joy in life. He was a fabulous best friend turned something more that I always wished for in my own high school years. Together they became a good team each helping the other out, without taking to much control over the other.

Plot-wise, I thought I had it figured out from the beginning, but as the story progressed, enough twists and clues were thrown in to keep me guessing, so that by the end I wasn't really sure how it was going to turn out. I would come up with a theory, then toss it out and come up with a new one, only to then later go back to my original theory, before throwing it out again. I enjoy a book that can keep me guessing.

All in all, this ended up being a pretty fun read, despite the whole serial killer thing and I would recommend that you go and find a copy for yourself.