Tag: Dean Koontz

First Line Friday #86

Today’s First Line Friday is written by Dean Koontz and sounds intense!

Ryan Perry did not know that something in him was broken.

From the #1 “New York Times” bestselling master of suspense comes a riveting thriller that probes the deepest terrors of the human psyche–and the ineffable mystery of what truly makes us who we are. Here a brilliant young man finds himself fighting for his very existence in a battle that starts with the most frightening words of all…

At thirty-four, Internet entrepreneur Ryan Perry seemed to have the world in his pocket–until the first troubling symptoms appeared out of nowhere. Within days, he’s diagnosed with incurable cardiomyopathy and finds himself on the waiting list for a heart transplant; it’s his only hope, and it’s dwindling fast. Ryan is about to lose it all…his health, his girlfriend Samantha, and his life.

One year later, Ryan has never felt better. Business is good and he hopes to renew his relationship with Samantha. Then the unmarked gifts begin to appear–a box of Valentine candy hearts, a heart pendant. Most disturbing of all, a graphic heart surgery video and the chilling message: “Your heart belongs to me.”

In a heartbeat, the medical miracle that gave Ryan a second chance at life is about to become a curse worse than death. For Ryan is being stalked by a mysterious woman who feels entitled to everything he has. She’s the spitting image of the twenty-six-year-old donor of the heart beating steadily in Ryan’s own chest.

And she’s come to take it back.

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Standalone Sunday: Intensity

Standalone Sunday was started by Megan over at Bookslayer Reads.

What is Standalone Sunday?

Each Sunday bloggers feature a standalone book (one that is not part of a series) that they loved or would recommend. The standalone can also be one you want to read. There is so much focus on books that are part of a series that standalone books seem to be forgotten. They can be just as great as book series!

Here is my selection for this week:

Intensity by Dean Koontz

Book Description:

Past midnight, Chyna Shepard, twenty-six, gazes out a moonlit window, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley home of her best friend’s family. Instinct proves reliable. A murderous sociopath, Edgler Foreman Vess, has entered the house, intent on killing everyone inside. A self-proclaimed “homicidal adventurer,” Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as they arise, to immerse himself in sensation, to live without fear, remorse, or limits, to live with intensity. Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit.

Chyna is a survivor, toughened by a lifelong struggle for safety and self-respect. Now she will be tested as never before. At first her sole aim is to get out alive—until, by chance, she learns the identity of Vess’s next intended victim, a faraway innocent only she can save. Driven by a newly discovered thirst for meaning beyond mere self-preservation, Chyna musters every inner resource she has to save an endangered girl . . . as moment by moment, the terrifying threat of Edgler Foreman Vess intensifies.


Right after I first got married four years ago, one of my friends from college invited me to  join the book club she was in.  This was the book they had just read and were discussing. I had never read it,but they all seemed to enjoy it.  It was written in 1996, so some parts of the book are dated, as cell phones were not readily available then as they are commonplace now.

I do own a copy and hope to read it at some point.

 

[Top]

The Husband

16429
Author: Dean Koontz
Audiobook

Published: May 30, 2006
Dates Read: September 12-22, 2016

My Rating: 2.5 Stars

Book Summary from Amazon:

What would you do for love? Would you die? Would you kill?

We have your wife. You can get her back for two million cash. Landscaper Mitchell Rafferty thinks it must be some kind of joke. He was in the middle of planting impatiens in the yard of one of his clients when his cell phone rang. Now he’s standing in a normal suburban neighborhood on a bright summer day, having a phone conversation out of his darkest nightmare.

Whoever is on the other end of the line is dead serious. He has Mitch’s wife and he’s named the price for her safe return. The caller doesn’t care that Mitch runs a small two-man landscaping operation and has no way of raising such a vast sum. He’s confident that Mitch will find a way.

If he loves his wife enough. . . Mitch does love her enough. He loves her more than life itself. He’s got seventy-two hours to prove it. He has to find the two million by then. But he’ll pay a lot more. He’ll pay anything.

From its tense opening to its shattering climax, The Husband is a thriller that will hold you in its relentless grip for every twist, every shock, every revelation…until it lets you go, unmistakably changed. This is a Dean Koontz novel, after all. And there’s no other experience quite like it.


My Review:

The premise of the book catches your attention and pulls you in. The actual novel not so much.

The Husband is divided into three parts. The first part is very good. Mitchell (Mitch) Rafferty is a landscaper and working a job when he receives a call that his wife has been kidnapped. And the kidnappers want $2 Million cash. He has 60 hours to get the money and they know he is a gardener with limited means. They let him know they are serious by shooting a man walking a dog. And like other novels similar to this, no cops or they kill his wife.

Here starts Mitch’s journey to rush to get the money. Will he make it to the deadline? Will he get the money? Will he save his wife? What will happen?

The book’s direction falls flat. There is a twist that you find out early on who is responsible for this happening.

There are several subplots, one involves his family and his childhood. This includes a sense-deprivation room that his parents used on Mitch and his siblings growing up. You do get to see how experiencing that affects them in both extremes, good and bad. This could be a fabulous plot to be used… in another book.

Overall, I could not recommend this book. I did keep listening to it to see what would happen. When I finished it I did not really have an opinion of the book. This was disappointing as I was hoping it would keep me on the edge of my seat and have me wanting more.

This is my second Koontz book, the first was Life Expectancy which I had rated four stars. Despite being disappointed in The Husband, I will read Koontz again.

[Top]