The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

Goodreads 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.

My Take: What a good book! I normally cannot handle reading or hearing about young girl abductions, but this book was really mild.

Violet has a gift; she can sense an imprint that ties a killer to their kill. Growing up she adjusted to the reality that many animals had imprints attached to them. She also crossed paths with doctors and police officers that had imprints as well. At the age of 8 she felt a really strong imprint that led her and her father to a shallow grave where a young girl was dumped. She is now in high school and there is a predator in town abducting young girls and Violet happens to find one of the bodies. She now knows the imprint and she may be the only one who can stop the killer.

Jay and Violet have been best friends ever since they were kids but now Violet is seeing Jay in another way. It is driving her crazy watching girls constantly flock to him, but she can never tell him how she feels.

I like the change in reading a mystery with romance. I **heart** Jay!