A Heartbeat Away by Harry Kraus

Hello Everybody,

This book also failed to show up so that I could read it! HOWEVER, I wound up with a Kindle copy, so I was able to read it after all! This book has a very interesting, but not totally un-plausible premise. Dr. Tori Taylor is a surgeon, mainly for cancer patients. However, her childhood and teen-age traumas have shut down all her emotions. She is hard on her staff, cold, distant and she has almost no friendships with anyone. In short, brilliant and gifted Dr. Tori is a failure in life skills, even though her patients, who are alive because of her skills adore her for helping them. Then the change comes. Tori has a heart transplant. This is the other end of the spectrum. The one where she is at the mercy of her doctors, and her nurses. But way deeper than these changes, nightmares have begun. 

Now Tori finds herself changing faster than she can keep up! It has to be the heart transplant. Who's memories is she reliving? They can't be her own, as she has no recall of these events, and she has never met the people she is seeing in her sleep. It will not back down, it will not let go, and it will not let up. So Tori decides she must find out what happened to her donor. Who was this person who gave her life, a beating healthy heart, but that with that heart also came a flood of emotions, touch, openness, and two new gifts that Tori never even considered. 

This was quite a good read, and I loved the changes, character growth, and mystery involved. I will admit to having caught onto and figured out a good bit of the mystery early on, but that is how I am. Perhaps it is one of my gifts. I did like the twists and turns that were worked in, and the over all message was very, very good. 

Carol 

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing A Heartbeat Away David C. Cook (September 1, 2012) by Harry Kraus

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

A Word from Harry:

I started writing my first novel during my last year of surgery training at UK. I was a chief resident, and started writing Stainless Steal Hearts in a call room at the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Lexington. It was a crazy time to write! I had a very demanding schedule, often spending days and nights in the hospital. I had two sons at that time, and I recognized the wisdom in my wife's urging: "Now doesn't seem the right time for this dream."

My experience as a writer is far from typical. Having received my formal training in biology and chemistry and medicine, my only preparation for a writing career was a love for reading. The longest thing I'd written before my first novel was a term paper in undergraduate school. My first novel was accepted by Crossway Books and published in 1994, and it wasn't until after I had FOUR published novels that I even opened a book of instruction about the craft of writing fiction. This is not what I recommend to others! Yes, I was successful, but I was bending the "rules" without knowing it. I had a natural talent for plotting, but I realize my initial success may have stunted my growth as a writer. I'd have made faster progress if I'd have gone to the fiction teachers sooner.

I have three sons: Joel, Evan, and Samuel. Look closely in all of my books and you'll see them there. My lovely wife, Kris, provides the basic composition for all those beautiful, athletic, dedicated women in my novels.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When a brilliant surgeon undergoes a heart transplant, her life transforms as she begins experiencing memories of a murder she never witnessed.

The residents worship her. Nurses step out of her way. Her colleagues respect and sometimes even fear her. But surgeon Tori Taylor never expected to end up on this side of the operating table.

Now she has a new heart. This life that was formerly controlled and predictable is now chaotic. Dr. Taylor had famously protected herself from love or commitment, but her walls are beginning to crumble.

And strangest of all, memories surface that will take her on a journey out of the operating room and into a murder investigation.

Where there once was a heart of stone, there is a heart of flesh. And there is no going back.

If you'd like to read the first chapter excerpt of A Heartbeat Away, go HERE.

The book link is: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/143470257X