Serious issues.

The description, as with the first book, intrigued me. The premise of Desires of the Dead is simple: Violet has drawn unwanted attention from the FBI, and now she must play a game of cat and mouse to keep her "morbid secret ability" a secret.Unfortunately, Desires of the Dead suffered "Second Book Syndrome." It happens sometimes, and it doesn't necessarily mean the book is bad - it's just a little bit of a let down after a great first book. I find this happens a lot in television shows, as well - season one is great, and then season two is kind of boring. Usually, book/TV season three picks up nicely, and all worries or doubts are cast aside.The sections in the book told from the "killer's" POV were bland compared to The Body Finder. I wasn't scared at all. I also found the identity of the "killer" to be a lot more predictable than in the first book.  This was a little bit inevitable, unfortunately, because of who the "killer" was and who that person had to interact with; however, I don't think Derting could have done these sections any other way. It's disappointing and it took some of the fun out of the guessing game, but I understand why it had to be done.One of my favorite characters this time around was Chelsea. I was indifferent to her in The Body Finder, and even found her a little bit annoying. She was much more likable in Desires of the Dead. Her character felt one sided in the first book, and she just rubbed me the wrong way. But in Desires of the Dead, she came alive (sorry for the pun!) She had moments where you really felt for her. You wanted Mike to notice her, to like her back. She was also more attuned to the feelings of others, especially Violet, this time. She knew when she had to be serious and stop joking around.Another character favorite was Sara Priest. I can't really put my finger on it, but I find her to be raw and authentic, like she genuinely cares about Violet, yet not totally trustworthy. And then there's Rafe. Broody, moody, man-of-few-words Rafe. I'm not his biggest fan... yet, at least.My least favorite part of Desires of the Dead, unfortunately, was Jay (again). He's known Violet since he was seven-years-old. They've been through so much together and yet he didn't believe her when she confided in him. She trusted him, needed his help, and he brushed her off. Worse, he brushed off her ability to sense echoes. That ability is a part of who Violet is and not believing in her ability is akin to not believing in Violet herself. And again, his temper didn't win him any points.I got a little annoyed with Violet this time around, too. In The Body Finder, she was a strong character who could take care of herself, but still relied on help from others when she needed it. She knew when something was too much for her to handle alone. In Desires of the Dead, she kept a lot of things to herself, refusing to open up to anyone. She relied heavily on her parents and uncle in the first book, but kept them pretty much in the dark in book two. There were several scenes where I just wanted to smack her for being so darn stubborn and for going it alone, when she should have asked for help. The one concession I can make for all this is that she's a teenager, and teenagers do tend to be - stereotypically - stubborn. They make mistakes and, hopefully, they learn from them.The ending felt a little bit anticlimactic. Maybe because it was more predictable than the ending to The Body Finder. Also, it had a little less action in it than The Body Finder did. Jay redeemed himself again, but he's still on probation as far as I'm concerned.Overall, despite my many issues with it (Sorry, Kimberly!), I did still enjoy Desires of the Dead and I still think it is worthy of 4 stars. It was a little harder to get through, but it pushed the series forward. I'm hoping everything that happened in Desires of the Dead was done to set up for an epic book three. I will say I'm about 100 pages into The Last Echo, and enjoying it a lot more, so that definitely gives me hope.You can also find more from me on my blog: Pandora's Books

I’m having a really hard time deciding what to say about Desires of the Dead. Honestly, I’m having a hard time even figuring out my feelings for it, let alone putting my thoughts into words. I read it fairly quickly, but I never really felt like it grabbed me. There were aspects that I liked and some that I didn’t so much.I will say that one thing I really liked about Desires of the Dead, especially over the first book, was the Prologue. It was written very similarly to the Prologues in the Twilight books, in that it gave a preview of the climax of the book, but with no context and not a lot of information. Honestly, this is probably what kept me flipping through the pages more than anything else. There were some pretty interesting things going on in that Prologue!However, from there, I felt like Desires of the Dead took a little bit of a downturn. Violet was really frustrating in this book. Because of her new romantic relationship with Jay and his resulting desire to keep her safe above all else, she starts feeling like she can’t talk to him like she used to, and she starts keeping things from him. Even when she starts receiving threats, she still doesn’t tell him. Um, what? It was just so far away from their characters in the first book that it kind of rubbed me the wrong way.Another thing that bothered me was that the mystery perspective chapters were a little too obvious to me. I guessed from the very first one who the character speaking was, though it took me a bit to fully figure out the context of what was going on. I did eventually figure out a lot of it, which is always frustrating for me, but it wasn’t horrible.Now that I’ve ranted, I will let you know that there were some things I liked about Desires of the Dead. For one thing, Violet’s friend Chelsea, who is usually outspoken and almost annoying sometimes, develops a crush, which she doesn’t seem prepared for. Seeing her navigate that crush was really funny. I also liked the new characters: Sara and Rafe. They brought a bit of mystery and intrigue.Though I predicted a bit of it, I really liked the way the final conflict played out. I thought the ending was pretty good, but it didn’t leave me dying to read the next book, though I still will. I definitely don’t think that this series is bad and would recommend avoiding it, but it wouldn’t be at the top of my recommendation list either.You can also read this and other reviews on my blog, Mommy's Reading Break

I'll have to return to it later...

The plot of this book was a little swallowed up by the romance but less so than the previous book. I had a hard time caring about her issues when yet again this generic perfect boyfriend is the most important issue when people are dead. It was an easy read though and even though it wasn't deep or anything it was interesting.