This paranormal murder mystery by Melissa Marr is advertised as a young adult novel.  It is heavy on its themes of murder and sex for young teens, but it is no more explicit than a regular episode of Law and Order.   17-year-old Eva is walking along the sidewalk when she is run over by someone in a car.  Then other girls in their North Carolina town start getting killed.  Eva starts out the novel in hospital, with her face cut up by her accident, and several bones broken.  Her parents are away traveling and her boyfriend Robert won’t come to see her.  At the hospital she meets Nate, who is in her grade and who used to be her best friend when they were much younger.  They stopped talking and he turned into a user of girls, hooking up with them at parties but never getting into any relationships.  Now Eva and Nate reconnect.  But after her accident she has gained an ability to see people’s deaths when they touch her, and she sees Nate being murdered. So can she change the future and save her love?

The story is told by three narrators, Eva, her best friend Grace, and her would-be killer who calls himself Judge.  Judge’s motivations seem to have some religious aspects to them, but then it turns out he is mainly obsessed with Eva and has various bizarre ideas about how to get her to realize she should be with him. The three narrators are performed by three different actors in the unabridged audiobook, and they do an adequate job. The conclusion is not particularly surprising or exciting.  The problem is that Eva is not really a very charismatic character and the romance and supernatural parts of the story get old quickly.  It is just not a gripping novel. But it is told well enough for readers to want to know what happens. It looks like this novel will be the first in a series featuring Eva and her powers of foresight. Maybe the subsequent novels in the series will give her more depth and complexity.

© 2014 Christian Perring

Christian Perring, Professor of Philosophy, Dowling College, New York