The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

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.

With a title like that, I expected mystery and horror. The Body Finder delivered this but I found it took the back seat towards the second half of the book. The relationship between Violet and her childhood and best friend Jay was the main event. Not that I'm complaining because their chemistry was apparent from the beginning and it was sweet reading about their love blossoming. I found the idea of Violet sensing dead people and the people who killed others through an 'echo' - a fascinating idea but I would have liked to know how she got these abilities (since her parents or relatives have no such case) at least vaguely.

The book alternates in chapters detailing what the murderer was up to and others things happening with Violet. The murderer chapters were twisted and creepy and these were cleverly intertwined throughout to make you speculate who the victim in each of their killings might be.

I loved the author's writing because there was so much imagery. Especially the first chapter which described Violet getting out of bed. It was amusing to read epic lines like 'But it was too late. She had awoken.'

Mystery, romance and a bit of high school drama thrown in and you have The Body Finder. I can't wait to get my hands on Desires of the Dead coming out in 2011!

★★★★.5