This Heart of Mine by CC Hunter

This Heart of Mine by C.C. Hunter
Narrator: Katie Schoor
Published by MacMillan Audio
Published on 1 March 2018
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, United States, Young Adult
Source: my local library
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RRP: $19.99

A new heart saved her life but will it help her find out what really happened to its donor?

Seventeen-year-old Leah MacKenzie is heartless. An artificial heart in a backpack is keeping her alive. However, this route only offers her a few years. And with her rare blood type, a transplant isn't likely. Living like you are dying isn't all its cracked up to be. But when a heart becomes available, shes given a second chance at life. Except Leah discovers who the donor was a boy from her school and they're saying he killed himself. Plagued with dreams since the transplant, she realizes she may hold the clues to what really happened.

Matt refuses to believe his twin killed himself. When Leah seeks him out, he learns they are both having similar dreams and hes certain it means something. While unravelling the secrets of his brothers final moments, Leah and Matt find each other, and a love they are terrified to lose. But life and even new hearts don't come with guarantees. Who knew living, took more courage than dying? This Heart of Mine is a haunting, poignant tale about living and dying, surviving grief, guilt, and heartache, while discovering love and hope in the midst of sadness.

I’ve been really getting into YA mysteries lately, and though it’s really macabre, I love an investigation into whether an alleged suicide is actually a suicide. I picked this book because it sounded really interesting with a heart transplant twist, with the main female character receiving visions from her donor, who just happens to be her crush’s identical twin. It sounded like there was going to be loads of investigation with maybe a hint of psychic activity and maybe a smattering of romance.

However, I was wrong. This was definitely romance and not a mystery. There IS a mystery, but there is hardly any investigation and nothing the two main characters do solves anything. Instead, we are subjected to an incredibly cute, sweet romance between two teens who are insecure about their relationship because of the circumstances around it. Although I wanted far less romance and far more investigation and mystery, I’m not rating it down because my expectations weren’t managed, because the romance was just that sweet and believable. I really enjoyed spending time with the main characters, even if they didn’t really affect the plot very much.

I felt like the author wanted to write two books, one a really great romance and the other a murder mystery, and managed to weave them pretty tightly together, but as a mystery it failed. The two main characters just kind of stand around saying I KNOW THIS IS WRONG WE NEED ANSWERS until View Spoiler »another character decides out of the blue to confess something that solves everything « Hide Spoiler. Mostly it revolved around the repeated assertion that the kid couldn’t have killed himself because he was happy and happy people just don’t kill anyone, let alone themselves, right?

You know how in Twilight it’s a romance through and through until out of the blue the ‘bad guy’ shows up and then there’s actual conflict? That’s what this book felt like, except that the murder mystery conflict was there from the start because this author learnt what not to do from S-Meyer (actually who am I to say it was the wrong thing to do? Twilight was a very successful book).

On the plus side, I have discovered another female narrator who does pretty decent character voices, so yay!

So overall this was a really cute romance between two teens in particularly unusual circumstances, but don’t expect Nancy Drew shenanigans or any investigation to solve a mystery.

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