The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

My name finally came up on the library hold list for this book.  It had been so long since I reserved it I couldn't remember who recommended it, or where I may have found it or why I wanted to read it, or what it might even be about.  I've been in a fantasy rut lately and I was getting a bit bored with it so when I saw the cover art and read the first line introducing Violet Ambrose I shuddered a little bit.  I was not ready for another fairy book.  But do not fear it's not fantasy at all, but it's not normal either.  So I guess then it's considered paranormal - but she doesn't move items with her mind or fly or anything psycho, so I am categorizing it YA Fiction, boring enough?

First Line: Violet Ambrose wandered away from the safety of her father as she listened to the harmony of sounds weaving delicately around her.

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 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 murderer 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."

Two late{ish} nights and I had it finished.  But the suspense, mystery, and scare factor combined with my crazy pregnancy hormones made for some really interesting/disturbing dreams last night.  Good thing I can't remember them anymore. I loved the back and forth plot between discovering she loves Jay (vice-versa) and the murder mystery.  Just when the suspense is maxed, it switches back to Jay and Vi and you can breath for a minute and forget their danger - then when their making out gets too blech/annoying it switches back to the hunt for a murderer, or his hunt for them.  Brilliant!  I found the ending satisfying, and was surprised to see this was Derting's first novel.  Good stuff!  

But of course my last (only) bit of critique you had to see coming... 

I don't like swearing: not in books, not in joking, not in anger, not even by drunken sailors.

(among other things I was fortunate enough to be shielded from in high school)

BUT especially NOT in YA reads, seriously peeps...