Finding Sky by Joss Stirling

Copy received for review with thanks from UK Book Tours!

"When English girl, Sky, catches a glimpse of bad boy Zed in her new American high school, she can't get him out of her head. He talks to her with his thoughts. He reads her mind. He is the boy she will love for ever. Shadows stalk her past but a new evil threatens her future. Sky must face the dark even if it means losing her heart."

Sky was abandoned as a six year old and adopted at 10, a very troubled girl who is convinced she can't be liked or loved, that she always makes bad things happen. At 16 her adoptive parents moved from England to a small town in Colorado, USA. There she meets bad boy Zed, unwittingly catching his attention. He seems convinced that there is more to Sky than meets the eye, and that they're destined to be together. Something that would terrify Sky on it's own, even without the possibility of them really having any kind of 'special powers'.

I really liked this book! I'd heard mixed reports about it before hand so I was a little cautious going in to it, but I found Sky's voice pretty captivating. She's a very shy girl who is hiding a lot of pain in her past, and now faces being the new girl and foreigner in an American high school rather than starting at her English sixth form college. I found Sky very easy to relate to with her fears and timid nature fit her background without making her a dull or uninteresting character. I liked Zed as well, but I did feel that several of the other side characters were a bit flat. Sky has a certain strength to her that I found very appealing and even if certain aspects of the book aren't great, she holds the story up on her own.

I enjoyed the story and thought it was well paced with some good little twists. There aren't really any big shocks, and while there is some action it all seems to happen as a almost soft pace. But it's something that worked for me and I found Finding Sky pretty hard to put down. I really felt for Sky as she tried to figure out who she really is, separating fact from fiction and find her place in the world. The romance is softly handled as well. Sweet and beautiful at times, carefully fit around Sky's own issues, and Zed's as well at times. It may be the main focus of the book, but the other elements stop it being a simple romance.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the lighter touch of paranormal, the different abilities savants have and how they work. A beautiful story and my only real hang up with it is that I couldn't always buy the Americans as Americans. It was very obvious on several occasions that it's an British writer trying to sound like typical American teenagers. But aside from that, it is a good story. Sweet and beautiful at times, and one I'd recommend.

Rating: 7/10