Book Review/ Giveaway: Damaged by Alex Kava

**THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED *** 

Synopsis: On Pensacola Beach, the Coast Guard prepares for a Category 5 hurricane that has entered the Gulf of Mexico. When the air crew patrols the waterways, they spot a huge fishing cooler about a mile offshore. Drug traffickers have been known to dump coolers with smuggled product to avoid detection and pay fishermen to retrieve them. But when the crew open this cooler, they’re shocked by what they find: body parts tightly wrapped in plastic.

Though she is putting herself in the projected path of the hurricane, Special Agent Maggie O’Dell is sent to investigate. Eventually, she’s able to trace the torso in the cooler back to a man who mysteriously disappeared weeks earlier after a hurricane hit Port St. Lucie, Florida. Only Port St. Lucie is on the Atlantic side. How did his body end up six hundred miles away in the Gulf of Mexico?

About the Author:

Kava grew up in the country, outside Silver Creek, Nebraska. She earned a bachelor’s degree in art and English from College of Saint Mary in Omaha, Nebraska.  She has done a variety of jobs, from working as a hospital tech, cleaning and sterilizing utensils from surgery, pathology and the morgue, to running her own graphic design firm, designing national food labels and directing television and radio commercials. In 1996 she quit her job as a public relations director to dedicate herself to writing a novel and getting published. To pay the bills, she refinanced her home, maxed out her credit cards and even took on a newspaper delivery route.

2010 marks Alex’s ten year anniversary as an author with the publication of her tenth novel, Damaged  She now writes full-time and lives in Omaha, Nebraska and Pensacola, Florida. For more info, check out her website: http://www.alexkava.com

Review: Kava uses behind-the-scenes forensic and Coast Guard details, interesting characters, and a continued heroine to make a very satisfying psychological thriller/mystery. Being from the New Orleans area, it was interesting to see how she used Hurricane Katrina as reference and as flashback for her characters. It brought a very up-to-date feel to the book and made it more realistic! heroine O'Dell has come along way and has demons haunting her that weren't there in the first couple of books. I haven't read the full series, but about half and I feel that she has allowed the heroine to grow and react psychologically in an accurate manner, that brings more life to the series! I found myself wanting to finish the book in one sitting, as it is so compelling and runs along at a fast pace. But I forced myself to read it in 2 sittings, to get more enjoyment out of it! I can't recommend the book enough for a great summer read!

The Giveaway

  TWO winners will each win their own copy of Damaged by Alex Kava!

ENTRIES:

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Contest will end on July 18th, at midnight. Winner will be picked by Random Number (random.org) on July 19th, and emailed. As soon as winner's info is received, Doubleday will be advise and mail them their books directly.

Disclosure / Disclaimer:  I received this book, free of charge, from Doubleday Publishing, in conjunction with posting on Book Blogs Ning, for review purposes. No compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to review it.