Review: The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

Title: The Body Finder (The Body Finder #1)
Author: Kimberly Derting
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release date: March 16th 2010

Rating: 4/5

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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 Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer... she might become his next prey.

This is the second time I read The Body Finder and I quite enjoyed it, maybe not as much as when I read it in 2011, but it is still a good story of the paranormal-mystery genre with some romance and has its creepy and chilling parts. I do recommended it.

The Body Finder tells the story of Violet, a sixteen-year-old girl that for as long as she can remember she can detect the bodies of animals that did not die of natural causes, since the bodies leave an echo to which she´s pulled when she is near them . In all her life she had only found a human body when she was a child while playing in the forest, but that changed when a sixteen years old Violet, found the body of a young girl and from that moment her is life changed, because she found one of victims of a serial killer who has been terrorizing her town.

Part of her ability is that she can detect echoes in animals or people that were killed and the other part is that she can detect an identical imprint in the killer, so when Violet discovers that the body she found is not the first victim she decides to do something about it with her ability and try to find the killer with the help of her reluctant best friend Jay.

A part that I liked a lot about this book is that there are certain chapters from the killer point of view, these chapters made it a bit creepy, which is good in this kind of books.

The plot is not only to find the murderer, but also about the possible romance between Violet and Jay, whom is her best friend, and to whom she recently been attracted to.

And something that could not be missing (if not, there was no story to tell) is that Violet, more than once put herself in danger. Added to this the story takes place in a small town that is surrounded by forest, in fact the backyard of Violet´s house is a forest, which increases the suspense in some scenes.

I was glad to read it again, since the first time I only read the first two books in the tetralogy and I need to know how Violet's story ends.

Review: The Replaced by Kimberly Derting

Title: The Replaced (The Taking #2)
Author: Kimberly Derting
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release date: April 28th 2015
Source: Edelweiss
Format: eARC

Rating: 3.5/5

Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

You can read my review of The Taking - here

Romantic and action-packed, The Replaced is the gripping second installment in the Taking trilogy.

Kyra hasn't been the same since she returned from her mysterious five-year disappearance. Now, on the run from the NSA, Kyra is forced to hide out with others who, like her, have been Returned. Yet she is determined to find Tyler, the boy she loves who was also abducted—all because of her. When her group intercepts a message that Tyler might still be alive but is in the hands of a shadowy government organization that experiments on the Returned, Kyra knows it's a risk to go after him. What if it's a trap? And worse, what if the returned Tyler isn't the same boy she lost?

Perfect for fans of The Fifth Wave and the Body Finder series, The Replaced is both chilling and explosive, with creepy, otherworldly elements and twisty, psychological thrills that will have you questioning what exactly it means to be human. 

The Replaced is a book that I was eager to read because of the ending on previous book and I was very happy to find out that this book starts exactly where The Taking left off. Kyra hiding from the NSA (a governmental organization that captures the Returned), but at the same time trying to find news about her father and Tyler; so when she learns of a possible sighting of a boy that might be Tyler, she doesn´t think twice and decide to go in search of him which triggers a series of events that threaten them as returnees and in the company of Simon, Willow and Jett, she should seek shelter in a camp for returnees like no other that she has known so far and where she doesn´t know whom to trust.

I really enjoyed this second book of the trilogy The Taking, as we learn a bit more about the beginnings of the first meetings between the government and the aliens(?), about their deal with them and has some interesting twists that really surprised me,

The plot begins with a good pace, but soon it slow down in the middle, to then to pick up speed in the end, where secrets come to light, identities are known, we get to know a little more experiments on the Returned and there is a small confrontation. I liked the ending, it was good and solid. The Replaced is a good second book in a trilogy and I recommended it for those that like YA sci-fi books.

Review: The Taking by Kimberly Derting

Title: The Taking (The Taking #1)
Author: Kimberly Derting
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release date: April 29th 2014
Source: Edelweiss
Format: eARC

Rating: 4/5

Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

A flash of white light . . . and then . . . nothing.

When sixteen-year-old Kyra Agnew wakes up behind a Dumpster at the Gas ’n’ Sip, she has no memory of how she got there. With a terrible headache and a major case of déjà vu, she heads home only to discover that five years have passed . . . yet she hasn’t aged a day.

Everything else about Kyra’s old life is different. Her parents are divorced, her boyfriend, Austin, is in college and dating her best friend, and her dad has changed from an uptight neat-freak to a drunken conspiracy theorist who blames her five-year disappearance on little green men.

Confused and lost, Kyra isn’t sure how to move forward unless she uncovers the truth. With Austin gone, she turns to Tyler, Austin’s annoying kid brother, who is now seventeen and who she has a sudden undeniable attraction to. As Tyler and Kyra retrace her steps from the fateful night of her disappearance, they discover strange phenomena that no one can explain, and they begin to wonder if Kyra’s father is not as crazy as he seems. There are others like her who have been taken . . . and returned. Kyra races to find an explanation and reclaim the life she once had, but what if the life she wants back is not her own?

The Taking has a great start that immediately hooked me, because it has mystery mixed with science fiction.

This book is about Kyra a sixteen year old, that after having a fight with her father, decides to get off the car and when she made ​​a run is illuminated by a powerful light and loses consciousness then wakes up behind a dumpster in a gas station near her home. And when she returns home realizes that everything has changed and she has been missing for five years, of which she remembers nothing.

So from there Kyra must adjust to her new life, decide what she will do with it and deal with her father who seems to have lost his mind, because he says that her disappearance is because she was abducted by beings from another planet. In addition to all that she must come to terms that Austin (the love of her life) move on and now she feels attracted towards Austin´s younger brother, Tyler.

I loved the idea of ​​the story and the story seemed very original and interesting (although it reminds me a little bit of a movie), I liked the whole mystery behind Kyra´s disappearance and how little by little she begins to discover what happened to her. There are some very interesting and unexpected twists in the story.

What I didn´t like or I didn´t believe was the romance between Kyra and Tyler, because while Tyler had been 5 years without seeing her, he saw his brother get on with life, so on and Tyler liked Kyra since he was 12 years old, but for her it 's only been a few days since she was in love with Austin, the boy that has been her boyfriend for years and his best friend, so that makes the romance between Tyler and Kyra very insta-love. Although I must say that Tyler is so cute, likable, very persistent and determined to win her love.

The Taking is fast-paced, full of mystery and had me guessing all the time about what had happened to Kyra?, why it happened to her?, why she looks exactly the same as five years ago?, why are people who seem to be following her?. Overall it´s a good first book in a trilogy and it left me with a lot of questions, it has a cliffhanger ending and I can´t wait to read the next book.

Waiting On Wednesday (95): The Taking

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

The book I´m waiting this week is

The Taking (The Taking #1) by Kimberly Derting

Release date: April 29th 2014

A flash of white light . . . and then . . . nothing.

When sixteen-year-old Kyra Agnew wakes up behind a Dumpster at the Gas ’n’ Sip, she has no memory of how she got there. With a terrible headache and a major case of déjà vu, she heads home only to discover that five years have passed . . . yet she hasn’t aged a day.

Everything else about Kyra’s old life is different. Her parents are divorced, her boyfriend, Austin, is in college and dating her best friend, and her dad has changed from an uptight neat-freak to a drunken conspiracy theorist who blames her five-year disappearance on little green men.

Confused and lost, Kyra isn’t sure how to move forward unless she uncovers the truth. With Austin gone, she turns to Tyler, Austin’s annoying kid brother, who is now seventeen and who she has a sudden undeniable attraction to. As Tyler and Kyra retrace her steps from the fateful night of her disappearance, they discover strange phenomena that no one can explain, and they begin to wonder if Kyra’s father is not as crazy as he seems. There are others like her who have been taken . . . and returned. Kyra races to find an explanation and reclaim the life she once had, but what if the life she wants back is not her own?

What book are you waiting this week?

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Don´t forget to enter my current giveaway:

October New Release Giveaway Hop (INTL) - HERE.

The Pledge by Kimberly Derting

Title: The Pledge (The Pledge #1)
Author: Kimberly Derting 
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Release date: November 15th 2011

Rating: 3/5

Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

In the violent country of Ludania, the classes are strictly divided by the language they speak. The smallest transgression, like looking a member of a higher class in the eye while they are speaking their native tongue, results in immediate execution. Seventeen-year-old Charlaina has always been able to understand the languages of all classes, and she's spent her life trying to hide her secret. The only place she can really be free is the drug-fueled underground clubs where people go to shake off the oppressive rules of the world they live in. It's there that she meets a beautiful and mysterious boy named Max who speaks a language she's never heard before . . . and her secret is almost exposed.

Charlie is intensely attracted to Max, even though she can't be sure where his real loyalties lie. As the emergency drills give way to real crisis and the violence escalates, it becomes clear that Charlie is the key to something much bigger: her country's only chance for freedom from the terrible power of a deadly regime.

I really liked The Body Finder series by Kimberty Derting, so that why I decided to read this book plus this is a dystopian novel and I love this genre. 

The main character is Charlaina or Charlie, a girl living in the kingdom of Ludania, where people are divided by caste or classes and each caste speaks their own language. It´s is forbidden and punishable by death to speak a language that don´t belong to your caste (except for the englaise). So Charlie must keep secret her "gift", since she can understand and speak every language in the kingdom, so she must be alert and don´t react to another language other than that of her caste . She was born into the vendor class and her family own a restaurant, she works there and there is where she first sees Max, a soldier ... and he will be the love interest of Charlie.

My favorite characters in this book are Max, and although I'm a little tired of love at first sight or instant-love ... but I liked him. Another character that I really liked is Xander, he helps Charlie in various situations, but do not panic there is NO love triangle in history. And I also liked the character of the evil Queen Sabara, she falls under the wicked queen stereotype, psychotic and she wants snatch "something" of the main protagonist of the story.

The story is in the genre of dystopian novels, but it also felt a bit like epic fantasy and has paranormal elements. I liked the story in general, but there was something missing in it. And I did not see the logic (And at least for me, everything is possible and believable when I read a fiction book), but each class had its own language, supposedly because the queen don´t want that the people unite and overthrow her kingdom, but they still have a base or universal language that is the englaise, which is the language of servants and everyone speak it. So each person speaks the language of their social class plus the englaise, this for when the people need to talk to someone outside of their class.

I enjoyed this book, but I felt something was missing and there are several parts of the plot that are a little predictable, but I liked the ending, because there is no cliffhanger and to some extent this book could be a standalone.

Covers Revealed

These are some of the covers that were revealed recently.

Title: Quintana of Charyn (Lumatere Chronicles #3)

Author: Melina Marchetta

Publisher: Viking Australia

Release date: October de 2012. Australia.

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Title: Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles #4)

Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Release date: October 23, 2012.

Add it on Goodreads

Title: The Essence (The Pledge #2)

Author: Kimberly Derting

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry

Release date: January 1, 2013

Add it on Goodreads



Title: The Crown of Embers (Fire and Thorns #2)

Author: Rae Carson

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Release date: September 18, 2012

Add it on Goodreads

  

Title: Promised (Birthmarked #3)

Author: Caragh O´Brien

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Release date: October 2, 2012

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Title: Rift (Nightshade prequel #1)

Author: Andrea Cremer

Publisher: Philomel

Release date: August 7, 2012.

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Really beautiful covers; which one is your favorite?