I absolutely love to discover new authors and Dan Scottow is definitely a new author for me. I read the synopsis for 'Damaged' and it certainly sounded like my favourite sort of psychological thriller with a fair few twists and turns along the way. All I can think on finishing this book is 'wowzers'. I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'Damaged' but more about that in a bit. Emily Blake is an investigative journalist. Some years ago she had a childhood friend called Alice, who sadly disappeared and was never heard of again. Another girl, Becky Clarke, goes missing in Emily's hometown and to Emily, the recent case shares certain characteristics with the case of her friend Alice, who disappeared all those years ago. Emily thinks that she has got a bit of a head start on other journalists since she comes from the town where the girls disappeared from. Emily also feels that if she goes 'home' to investigate the recent case then she might find information that helps solve the mystery of what happened to her good friend Alice. Emily reacquaints herself with old friends and old rivalries and she gets back in touch with her estranged brother. What happened to Alice? What happened to Becky? Are the two cases connected? Are there any twists and turns to the tale? Well for the answers to those questions and so much more you are just going to have to read the book for yourselves to find out as I am not going to tell you. Oh my flipping word, 'Damaged' has to be one of the best books that I have read in a while. I was completely under this book's 'spell' from the moment I picked it up until the moment I closed the back cover. To say that reading 'Damaged' was addictive seems to be the understatement of the decade. If I wasn't reading this book, I was thinking about it. I would go to sleep thinking about the book and looking forward to waking up the following morning knowing that I could pick the book up again. I managed to read the book over the course of a few days and I would have finished it sooner had it not been for life getting in the way. I was gutted when I finished reading 'Damaged' because it meant that I had finished a fabulous book. 'Damaged' is brilliantly written. I had trouble believing that this was the author's debut novel because the author writes with such high confidence and the writing is so polished. He got my attention from the start and drew me into the story. Once the author had my attention he would not let it go until I got to the end of the book. Through the author's vivid and realistic descriptions I got a real sense of the environment that Emily found herself in when she goes back home. I found that I was going through the same emotions that Emily was going through. The author writes so convincingly that I really did feel as though I was part of the story myself. In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'Damaged' and I definitely recommend that you read this book. I will definitely be reading more of Dan's work in the future. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.