From the Publisher
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.
About the Author
Dean Koontz, the author of many #1 New York Times
bestsellers, lives with his wife, Gerda, and the enduring spirit of
their golden retriever, Trixie, in southern California.
From the Author
A QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION WITH DEAN KOONTZ
Q: YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME is very suspenseful
but at the same time an affecting love story. How difficult was
this to pull off?
A: Well, life is full of suspense and, if we're lucky, it's full
of love as well. From minute to minute and day to day, we never
know what will happen to us, good or bad, so suspense is the
fundamental condition of existence. That doesn't change when we
fall in love or when we love a child or a sibling or a great dog.
In fact, the more we love, the more we have to lose, which puts a
sharper edge on the suspense in life and in YOUR HEART BELONGS
TO ME. Ryan Perry, the lead of the story, enjoys self-made
wealth and good health and the love of a good woman--so when all
that starts to slip away from him, it's actually easier for me to
move readers to the edge of their seats and keep them there.
Q: Your books are full of details about how things work in
the real world--like life in a monastery in BROTHER ODD, the
management of a great Bel Air estate and the intricacies of police
work in THE FACE. YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME is
rich with details about medical conditions and heart transplants.
Since you don't specialize in one kind of novel, how do you learn
about all these different things? Do you engage in a lot of
Internet research?
A: I never go on-line. My writing schedule and other obligations
keep me busy 18/7. The other six hours, I sleep. I know that I am a
potentially obsessive personality and that it's easy to become
obsessed with one aspect or another of the Internet, until hours a
day are consumed by it. Therefore, I stay away. I do most of my
research from books and publications, and by conducting interviews
with specialists in whatever fields my story will touch upon. One
of my assistants is on-line, and in a pinch, if I can't turn up a
fact I need, she can get it for me. As a high-school and college
student, I hated research and libraries. I always shamelessly made
up the facts in reports that I wrote, and cited nonexistent books
by nonexistent writers in my footnotes. And I always got away with
it! But as a novelist, I've been surprised to find that I greatly
enjoy doing research. I think the difference is--in school, they
told me what I had to learn, and I bristled at authority; when I
chose the subject, I proved to be an industrious autodidact.
Q: Your hero in YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME, Ryan
Perry, is different from your other heroes, like Odd Thomas and
Mitchell Rafferty and Tim Carrier. What was it about the story you
were telling in YOUR HEART that required this
change?
A: Most of my heroes come from ordinary occupations--a fry cook, a
baker, a mason, a gardener, a bartender--which makes them like many
of my friends in real life. But Ryan Perry in YOUR HEART
has made a couple hundred million from an Internet business. For
this story, I needed a hero who, at the opening, has everything:
he's wealthy, he has a beautiful girlfriend whom he loves and who
loves him, he essentially leads a life of leisure at 34, he's
vigorous and handsome and charming.... And then everything that
really matters begins to slip away from him. He had to be at the
top in order to be at risk of a long fall. As he begins to think
that some people in his life are involved in a conspiracy to kill
him, he needed to be a man of exceptional resources to pursue that
investigation.
Q: Where did the idea for YOUR HEART BELONGS TO
ME come from?
A: I was on the phone with a friend, talking about a smorgasbord
of things, when the subject of heart transplants came up, and he
told me something, an anecdote, that astonished me. Before I hung
up, I had spun that small fact into a story that I couldn't wait to
write. I've already made it clear to him that he gets no royalties!
Story ideas have come to me from lines in songs, from a scrap of
overheard conversation, from just about everywhere. And sometimes a
story pops into my head, and I have no idea what the source of it
was. Thank God this keeps happening; otherwise I might have to
learn an honest trade like plumbing.
Q: What is next for you? Another Odd Thomas
novel?
A: There will be three more Odd Thomas novels, but my book for
spring 2009 is not one of them. It's titled THE OTHER SIDE OF
THE WOODS and is in the vein of LIFE EXPECTANCY. I'm
having great fun with it. Even when writing is hard, I always have
fun with it. In fact, the harder it is, the more fun it is, because
the challenge is what makes the work worthwhile.
Hardcover
352 Pages, 6.48 x 9.3 x 1.29 in
November 25, 2008
Random House Publishing Group
English
0553807137
9780553807134