Find Me by Romily Bernard

Find Me by Romily Bernard
Buy Find Me by Romily Bernard at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Teens
Reviewer: Jill Murphy
Summary: Page-turning mystery thriller with an interesting central character and a spot - but not too much - romance. The plot is a little predictable but this is a satisfying read for fans of crime.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 320	Date: January 2014
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 147111550X
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Find Me

This is the note attached to Tessa Waye's diary when it was left on Wick Tate's doorstep. But Tessa has been found. She's dead. Wick is perfectly placed to investigate - her hacking skills allow her to find out almost anything about almost anyone. But why should she? She had been friends with Tessa but that was long ago. Wick has few friends since her mother committed suicide, her father was exposed as a drug dealer and mob criminal and she ended up in foster care. But then Wick discovers that her little sister Lily is the perpetrator's next target and Wick will do anything to protect Lily. But with her father back on the scene, a creepy cop hanging around and a psycho on the loose, things are about to get very hairy...

Ok. Find Me is a great read but an uneven book - a game of two halves, if you'll forgive the cliche. The good is great. The less good is a little bit annoying. I'll try to explain.

The good: most importantly, the writing. It doesn't matter how intricate the plot, how cool the characters, if the writing is no good then the book is no good. Happily, Romily Bernard can write well. Her prose flows and builds tension effortlessly. This is a mystery thriller and the creepy scenes are particularly well done, creating a genuinely menacing atmosphere. I also loved Wick as a central character. Let down by both parents, scorned at school, you can see why she lacks trust in anyone. But Bernard's first person narration also lets you know just how much she yearns to trust. It's horribly sad and makes you love Wick, even when she is being a real pain. And she is often a real pain! I also appreciated that the mystery takes centre stage in this story - I'm fed up with being told that I'm about to read a mystery thriller only to find that I actually have a romance story with a nod to a crime plot. In Find Me, it's Wick's romance with Griff that takes a back seat.

The not-so-good: Find Me is a mystery thriller. So it doesn't help that the identity of the perpertrator is painfully obvious almost from the very beginning of the book. I never realise whodunnit early on but I did here. There's also second mystery, and I got that straightaway, too. If Jill Slow-on-the-uptake Murphy latched on this quickly, I can't imagine a reader out there who won't. The other big problem is Wick's status as a genius teen hacker. Um. I'm not a hacker but even I knew that most of Wick's online nefariousness wasn't hacking and the hacking she did do was hardly on the genius level. I didn't expect Bernard to provide a hacker's reference tool in this novel but I did hope for better research than was apparent.

Problems aside, I did enjoy Find Me. It's a moreish read and is well-written. I loved Wick. If you're not picky about the technical details and are more interested in the why and the how than the who, then I can recommend it to you.

Excellent crime/thrillers for teens include Deathwatch by Nicola Morgan, The Angel Collector by Bali Rai and The Opposite of Amber by Gillian Philip. River of Ink 1: Genesis by Helen Dennis is a good read. You might like Hold Your Breath by Caroline Green although Find Me is by far the better book.

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You can read more book reviews or buy Find Me by Romily Bernard at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Find Me by Romily Bernard at Amazon.com.

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