Book Review: The Body Finder

The Body Finder (The Body Finder #1)

By: Kimberly Derting

Published By: HarperCollins

Publication Date: March 2010

Page Count: 327

Buy it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or IndieBound

Source: Purchased by Reviewer

Audience: Young Adult - Paranormal/Mystery

Review of Book #2: Desires of the Dead

Review of Book #3: The Last Echo

Review of Book #4: Dead Silence

Book Boyfriend: Jay Heaton

I recently reread this, in anticipation of the Dead Silence (Body Finder #4) blog tour, and I quickly found myself swept back into Violet and Jay’s world. I absolutely ADORE this series. It has everything for me; romance, mystery, a smidge of paranormal and a healthy slice of suspense... *deep sigh*

Reading about Violet Ambrose and her bizarre ability is just so refreshing to me. She is a normal girl with everyday issues of overprotective parents, best-friend who she secretly loves, and uncontrollable hair. I think I fell for Violet before I’d passed a chapter. What I really love though is how she detects the bodies of murdered people and animals. She can feel echoes coming off them, and those echoes can be anything from a nasty smell, to a shrill noise, to a bitter taste. It is just so unexpected, and often those echoes sneak up on her. Usually, it is just the cat giving off the imprint of an echo, walking past after a hard night’s hunt, but one day it isn’t just the cat. One day, she finds a dead girl, and from that point on Violet can hardly feel at ease until she is laid to rest. Then more girls start to disappear and Violet feels like she has to help in some way, because the echo given off by the body is imprinted on the murderer, meaning that Violet is in a very unique position because she can see/smell/hear who it is without them having the slightest idea.

What I loved about The Body Finder was Violet’s support network. Her parents, best friend and uncle (the chief of police) all know about Violet’s ability and they work with her to a certain extent. It is so unusual in young adult fiction to find a teen who does confide, and I loved how they understood through their disapproval of her actions.

The biggest shout out for The Body Finder has to go to Jay though. If I could only have one book boyfriend ever, Jay would be my pick every time. He has been Violet’s best friend since first grade, with her through all the funerals for murdered rabbits and so on, and he adores her. He loves her, she loves him, but neither own up to it for quite a while. The chemistry between them is simply delicious, and would make Jane Austen fans curl their toes in delight. Jay is the perfect combination of goofball and hot. He is funny, loves to banter, and he is very protective of Violet without straying into ‘worrying’ territory.

This series gets my absolute seal of approval, no qualms, I adore it.

Summary:

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.