Violet is a sixteen-year-old junior living in a small eastern Washington town. She has a physic ability of seeing the echoes that are associated with the dead and their killers. She can sense their auras of sound, color or even taste which are imprinted on the victims and their murderers. Violet has never felt like this was a gift until one day she comes upon the body of a dead girl. It used to be just small animals that she could sense. What seems like a onetime occurrence happens again years later and continues to happen when she learns there is a serial killer on the loose. One who is looking for teenage girls. Sheriff Ambrose who is investigating the murders is Violet’s uncle and as the murders progress it seems that Violet is the only one who can help stop the killer. Then we add Jay into the picture. Jay and Violet have been best friends for years. They know everything there is to know about each other then over the summer Jay gets taller and broader and turns into the new school ‘hottie’. Jay seems oblivious to all of the girls fawning over him and oblivious to the fact that Violet is falling in love with him. Then the killer starts to stalk Violet and she is now the prey! The murder mystery of the killer is intertwined with the romance growing between Jay and Violet. At one moment you are in suspense with the killer then the next you are in suspense with the romance. Will Violet be able to control her gift so she can help her uncle find the killer? Will Jay and Violet open up to their true feelings for each other? What happens when Violet is the prey?
327 pages 9780061779817 Ages 14 & up
Other titles in the series: Desires of the Dead, Book 2; The Last Echo, Book 3; Dead Silence, Book 4
Recommended by: Joleen Waltman, Librarian, Idaho USA
**********
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.--from the publisher
