YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME
Dean Koontz
Bantam
Thriller
Hardcover: 9780553807134
Paperback: 9780553591712
The first heart transplant took place in the 1960s. Since then, many lives have been saved by this delicate and skilled procedure. It remains dangerous, and patients risk infection and rejection if they survive the operation itself. When Ryan Perry, just 34 years old, undergoes the transplant, he is prepared for the worst. But a year later he is in good health. Then mysterious and creepy gifts begin to appear, bringing back memories of the year leading up to the surgery. He knows it is all connected: his break-up with his girlfriend, the transplant, the gifts left for him by a threatening entity. But how?
YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME, Dean Koontz’s latest thriller, is Ryan's story.
Ryan is a self-made success; having made millions in the high-tech industry, he is confident and content. He has a beautiful and smart girlfriend, work he finds interesting, a California mansion, and whole days free to surf and play. Yet all is not completely well. Samantha won’t marry him and won't really tell him why. There are things about herself, especially the death of her twin sister, that she keeps from him, and he wonders why she doesn't trust him. He begins to have panic attacks, and they quickly turn into debilitating episodes of physical pain. After he finds out he has a heart condition, he decides to find the best doctors money can buy. As he approaches the transplant surgery that will save his life, Samantha pulls away from him and strange things begin to happen. Paranoid and scared, Ryan uses his financial resources to try to find answers. But it is only later, after Samantha is gone and he has a new heart, that Ryan can really get the answers he was seeking.
Part supernatural thriller, part medical mystery, part love story and part moralistic tale, YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME is an interesting novel about greed, love, anger, loss and redemption. When Koontz tells readers that “Ryan Perry did not know something in him was broken” it is soon obvious that it is not just his heart to which he is referring. Ryan, like many of the characters in the book, is a deeply wounded individual who must come to terms not only with the decisions he has made, but also with things beyond his control. They each may choose art or violence, perversion or service, but in the end they are all grappling with nothing less than the meaning of a life well lived and a death not in vain. Ryan is helped along the way, but a series of individuals who come into his life to bring him guidance and move him towards the enlightenment will make him far healthier than any medical procedure can.
Ryan Perry is not a very likable character. In fact he is a bit of a spoiled brat, with a domestic staff to cook his meals, drive him around and even turn down his bed sheets at night. Koontz, however, wants to prove that there is goodness in even such a self-centered and shallow man. While the plot veers wildly a few times, readers --- if willing to look past the undeveloped ghostly tangent --- will find much to enjoy.
YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME lacks the lightness and humor of the early Odd Thomas novels, but is a far better book than his last, THE DARKEST EVENING OF THE YEAR, with plenty of the scary and spine-tingling moments that has made Koontz a bestselling author.
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.
© Copyright 1996-2009, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
