"Arm Farm" Book Review

Arm Farm
by Sarah Butland

BIO:
Sarah Butland is the author of three books for children, young adult, and adult. She is 28 years old and currently residing in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, with her husband, son, a dog named Corona, and cat named Russ. On any given day you can catch her reading books by Luanne Rice, Lesley Choyce, Stephen King and Dan Brown. She's also open to reading new authors.

BLURB:
"The text books discourage wild flights of imagination, but those in the field embrace them." From the title until we discover the identity of the unknown subject. Is an arm farm a place to grow arms, and is this about medical science and amputees and replacement surgery? Within five paragraphs we learn that it is not about growing arms and surgery, but a journey of both factual and person knowledge. Natalie walks through the field of forensics with the intent of discovering who did her parents wrong. Natalie is on her way to becoming s success but finds herself dwelling on her past. Will what happened to her so long ago ruin her chance at having her own life? Or will she overcome what has been happening to be able to let go of it? It's a long road for this young girl but she chose the path through the Arm Farm, just not with all the repercussions.

Sarah has a very unique writing style. The book is written very narratively, which normally gives the reader a detached feeling, but somehow doesn't in her case. The book is also very dialog driven, whether internally or verbally. Most interesting about the dialog is instead of verbalizing the important aspects of conversation to propel the plot, she internalizes that, and leaves the mundane for quotations. Very interesting. The only real faults I had for the book were that everyone seemed a little too supportive of the heroine, and things seemed to fall into place a tad too easily. This reads like a cozy mystery, and the author definitely did her homework on forensics. Recommended.

Kelly Moran,
author of Summer's Road