Desires Of The Dead by Kimberly Derting Book Review

While The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting ended on what seemed to be a final note, there is more to Violet’s story as we see in Desires Of The Dead, and in 2012, The Last Echo. Y’all Desires Of The Dead is action packed from the beginning. From a mysterious, foreshadowy prologue to new students at school, and Violet finding a body in Seattle which results in the FBI all up in her grill, the girl has a LOT to handle.

Desires Of The Dead

I wish that I could gush and gush and gush about Desires Of The Dead, but alas, I cannot. While I did enjoy Derting’s sophomore novel, I did not love it as much as it’s predecessor.

I felt there were several pitfalls which prevented me from loving up on this one. First, Desires Of The Dead absolutely reads, to me, like the typical second in a trilogy novel. I mean, sure there is action and things happened and there are new reveals. Yet, Desires of The Dead dos not feel completely self-contained. I don’t know if I would have liked it at the level I did had I not read The Body Finder first and had I not already grown an attachment to the characters. Further, while there is a bit of a resolution as the epilogue is provided, there are still a lot of questions and you can totally see where the door is opened for a third book. Also, as I mentioned, the story does advance, yet I felt like the device of the new students (Mike and Megan) were inserted to add tension and create a jealous rift between Jay and Violet, and not to be fully realized characters outside of a plot device. And I realize this is what writers do, but that’s merely my opinion, I just felt it was inauthentic.

HOWEVER, I do have some praise for Desires Of The Dead as well. There are still murders. I shouldn’t cheer that, but the YA body count is pretty low and could use some more numbers. Plus, I wasn’t able to guess the murderer from the get-go, and being surprised is ALWAYS a good thing with me. ALSO ALSO there’s Jay, who I think is pretty much my YA male of the year tying with several other characters. But he’s got non-douchy ways and he straight up tells Violet to stop being jealous of his friendship with Megan, or at least I’m pretty sure that happened. And I know that’s odd to praise, but I see it as FINALLY a YA book where boundaries are set in a relationship and jealousy isn’t shown as love or anything weird like that. So kudos to Kimberly Derting for writing a healthy relationship and having the characters deal with real life problems in a constructive manner.

I would probably remiss if I didn’t mention the kissing scenes. While there wasn’t so much will they won’t they because Violet and Jay are already together, when they start getting heated, it’s definitely a treat for those of us who majored in sexytimes.

While Desires Of The Dead isn’t the best second in a trilogy ever, I do recommend checking it out if you already liked Violet and Jay.

Disclosure: Received randomly for review earlier this year.

Other Reviews of Desires Of The Dead by Kimberly Derting:

Pure Imagination
The Allure Of Books
Hobbitsies
The Perpetual Page Turner

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April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

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