"Thief of Hearts" by Christopher Golden

So I finally started biting the bullet and reading "Thief of Hearts" by Christopher Golden. It's part of the Jenna Blake "Body of Evidence" series. Jenna is a college student who works as a kind of pathology assistant, basically helping people do all the Dana Scully work on dead bodies. I've only ever read "Skin Deep" before, but now own "Thief of Hearts" and "Meets the Eye" due to my Bookmooch-ing, back in the day. I got "Meets the Eye" first and realized I was reading them out of order- basically, someone really close to Jenna dies in "Thief of Hears" and it ripples through the rest of the series. Now that I'm trying to establish some series order, which is something teens coming into my library insist upon (and rightly so!) hopefully I will enjoy all the books much more. "Thief of Hearts" gets REAL good in the death scenes, which are a better read than watching the first "Scream" movie. Golden gives his victims the chance of escape, only to take it away, make them loose all hope, finally give them a chance, then kill them. REAL good, even when you know it's coming.

I'm already halfway through the book, so I'll probably post a full review on Random Buzzers and LibraryThing soon. I might stick with the series for awhile, mainly because I would like to eventually booktalk one or two of them and give an overview of a series of books when I'm doing my presentations. My only complaint is the dialogue- when Golden is writing a YA novel like this, or his Buffy work, sometimes the dialogue seems a little forced- humor is often inappropriate (the characters were making jokes in the next chapter after the major death in chapter 5, which just... didn't go with the tone). Golden should get snaps for delivering plot through the dialogue, but he's at his strongest when he's describing the truly horrific- which I would like more of in the future Jenna Blake novels, so hopefully he gets a little darker. In "Skin Deep" - he definitely does, so maybe it just took him awhile to find his rhythm. Check out the "Body of Evidence" series. It's seriously making me want to take long subway rides and read the ENTIRE time. Check them out from your local library.