THE BODY FINDER by Kimberly Derting

The Body Finder tells the story of Violet Ambrose, a sixteen-year-old girl with the power to sense murder victims--and more importantly the taint left behind on both the bodies and the murderers.

Violet unearthed her first body buried in the woods when she was eight.  She can't stand the stench her cat carries around, the "echoes" of countless unfortunate creatures caught and killed by the feline clinging to his coat.  Her best friend, Jay Heaton, is one of the few people who knows about and accepts her secret, but all the girl's around town are starting to notice Jay now--and Violet is no exception.  When a serial killer starts picking off girls left and right, Violet sets out to find the murderer using her unique skill.  But even with Jay guarding her back, there's danger around every corner, and the killer has set his sights on the one girl who could end all the fun--or become his latest victim.

Honestly, it took me a while to pick this one up.  Don't know why; it was just one of those things. *shrugs* I've had a few people tell me this happens to them as well.  You go into the bookstore, keep picking up the book, putting it back, picking it up etc.  The title is so good I couldn't not pick up the book (and yes, that's a double negative J But it's the truth).  The cover is gorgeous and steps away from that whole beautiful-cover-model-staring-out-with-mysterious-eyes motif.  Not that I don't like those covers, but this book had more substance than two really hot characters making moon eyes at each other.

I loved getting to see how the friendship between Violet and Jay evolved into something more.  Those new feelings that threatened to change their relationship forever coupled with the new threat to the town's safety really played well off each other.  Talk about internal and external conflict, it was all there.  Kimberly Derting did a spectacular job of making the relationship between her two leads just as compelling as the serial killer plot.

I will say I have a real love of stories where "best friends become more."  Although that type of romance may seem overdone, I think it's more common nowadays to see the "mysterious stranger who wants to kill you, but in the end they profess undying love, and you forget they initially treated you like crap."  Maybe it's just me, but pretty much everything I real follows that formula, so it was nice to see a different romantic dynamic here.  Especially because it was done so well J  I believed that Violet was just now starting to recognize her feelings for Jay and that he had known his all along.  *Sigh* How can you not love that?

Apart from Violet making some pretty stupid impulsive decisions that had me pulling my hair out questioning her judgment--such as slipping out of the house at the height of the investigation for a light jog in the woods, ALONE--I really enjoyed the book.  The prose was a little thick, too descriptive for my tastes, the story a bit long b/c of that.  But overall, it was a good read, and I'm happy I picked it up.  It was another one of those MCs with a power that has "series potential" written all over it--and there are at least two other books after this one J

Happy reading all,

Ninja Girl